See The Sky Again
by Jehuty42
Summary: REMASTERED: FINAL CHAPTER UPLOADED When the British Government take over the digital world the DigiDestined must fight to regain control with the help of a new member to the team
1. In The Car, I just Can't Wait

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 1 - "In the car, I just can't wait..."

The day started out the same as every day in the previous week. The sun was shining brightly and the temperature was pleasantly warm with a light breeze in the air. It was the last day of the school year before the summer holiday and every student at Odaiba Junior High knew this, and as such nobody felt like doing any work. Especially two people in particular, Takeru Takaishi, known as T.K, and Hikari Kamiya, known as Kari. This is because tonight was to be their first official date. It was a year since the digi-destined defeated Malomyotismon and with no other threats to the digital world to occupy them for a year, their time was spent doing other things, and in T.K and Kari's case a lot of it was spent with each other. Nothing had come of this, though, because of one of their friends and fellow digi-destined Davis Motimiya. It was a well-known fact, by almost everybody in their grade, that Davis had the biggest crush on Kari. It was this that kept T.K and Kari from getting together before now, although they would never admit it.

However, two weeks earlier, Davis had come up to T.K after his final end of year basketball match and said, "Err T.K, can I have a word with you"  
"Sure." T.K replied, "Just give me ten minuets to get showered and changed, okay"  
"Okay, I'll be waiting out front. Great game by the way." "Thanks." T.K shouted on his way to the changing room, and Davis left to go and wait outside. In the last year T.K and Davis had set aside their differences and had become very good friends, so it wasn't unusual for Davis to be found watching one of T.K's basketball matches with the rest of the digi-destined. But that night instead of going straight to the café down the road from the school to celebrate, as was the arranged plan after such events, Davis stayed behind to talk to T.K.

When T.K emerged from the changing room he found Davis standing under a tree just outside the main entrance to the school. He walked over to him and said, "Hey Davis, so what did you want to talk to me about"  
"You rocked out there today, man. You really wiped the floor with the other team"  
"Thanks." T.K replied slightly puzzled "But I'm sure you didn't wait around just to tell me that, what did you want to say, it sounded important"  
"Okay, just gimme some time, this is hard for me." Said Davis, and then he left a slight pause before continuing, "And don't interrupt me after I get started okay," he added.  
"Okay, whatever." T.K said, and then waited for Davis to continue.  
"I've seen how much time you are Kari are spending together lately, and how close you've been getting and it occurred to me that you two deserve to be together. Now it's no secret that I like Kari as well, but after having seen you two together so much I decided that if that is the way you feel about each other, I won't stand in you way. You should ask Kari out." Davis finished. T.K just stood there in stunned silence. If he was expecting Davis to say anything it was certainly not that. After several seconds of silence Davis said, "That is how you feel isn't it T.K? Or have I totally misread the signals along with everyone else"  
"No man, that's how I - we - feel. Thanks a lot, that means a lot to me, a hell of a lot actually. Hey wait a minuet, what do you mean everyone else?" With that Davis suddenly broke into a big smile "Dude, you two have been practically living with each other for that last two months, it's no secret that you two like each other big time. Matt and Tai even started a bet to see when you two would have your first date." Davis said this almost laughing out loud.  
"Bet huh, Tai did that?" T.K said almost to himself, he then said, "So what day did you pick then?" also breaking into a smile.  
"The last day of term, I thought it had a nice ring to it." Davis replied, they had started walking towards the café where they were going to meet the rest of their friends.  
"I'll see what I can do for you, I mean it's the very least I can do. Thanks again Davis"  
"Don't mention it. It's clear that she really likes you and besides I heard that Erin Carter from my Geography class has had her eye on me for some time, and well to put it bluntly, she's a babe." With that T.K laughed, as did Davis. They then walked the rest of the way to the café talking about the game and how T.K and his team had flattened the other team. Little did Davis know that he would be seeing much more of Erin Carter in the coming weeks.

It was 4 Days after T.K and Davis' chat before T.K finally asked Kari out. She had said yes, and they had arranged that their first date would be on the last day of the school term so they would have something to look forward to, and now that day had finally arrived. T.K and Kari thought that it would be appropriate to not see each other until their date later that night. This wasn't too much of a problem, as they had no lessons together that day. At lunch T.K went to eat with Davis and Cody Hida, another one of the digi-destined who was also the youngest of the group, and Kari went with Yolei Inoue, also a member of the digi-destined.

"So are you excited about tonight Kari?" Yolei asked. She had been badgering Kari about going out with T.K almost as long as she had known them and was the most excited when they announced that they were going out, even amongst the older members of the digi-destined who had known T.K and Kari ever since their first trip into the digital world five years ago. Her first reaction to the news was a very loud "Eventually!" which was followed quickly by an equally loud "Congratulations." And now that the day had arrived she was almost as excited as Kari.  
"I think the phrase you're looking for is, more nervous than I have ever been in my whole life." Kari replied. Although it was lunchtime Kari hadn't eaten anything, instead she just looked at her lunch and occasionally picked at it with her fork.  
"What have you got to be nervous about? T.K's a great guy and besides you've known him most of you life." Yolei said, trying to sound reassuring.  
"That's exactly the problem Yolei, he's my best friend. As much as I like him I don't want anything to happen to our friendship"  
"Oh Kari, you worry too much. I don't think you have to be concerned about anything happening to your friendship. You two will be best friends forever regardless of what happens in your romantic relationship. Listen, try not to think about any of this and just have a good time tonight, okay." Yolei was still trying to sound reassuring, however she all but ordered the last part.  
"Okay I'll try. And thanks Yolei, you've been a great help." Kari said smiling now.

Little did she know that T.K was having almost exactly the same conversation with Davis and Cody outside the lunchroom.  
"What if I screw everything up and she ends up hating me." He said with a very worried look on his face.  
"Dude, what are you worrying about. You're not going to screw anything up; you're going to have a great time tonight and Kari's going to have a great time. She's definitely not going to wind up hating you." Davis said in his most sympathetic tone of voice, which made him sound like a very bad psychiatrist, but T.K got the point none the less.  
"Davis is right T.K. You two have known each other too long for something like that to ruin your friendship. Your two are the closest friends I know and tonight can only help to make you closer." Cody said. Although he was the youngest of the group he was without doubt one of the wisest and most sensitive, which made him sound like he was one of the older members. His wisdom was gained from years of listening to his grandfather, who in Cody's opinion was the wisest person he knew. He also spent a lot of time with Yolei, which helped in these situations, as Yolei was the self-proclaimed queen of relationships. Cody put this down to her holding the digi-egg of love, but he also had a sneaking suspicion that she watched a lot of daytime soap operas on the television, but he never brought that up in conversations.  
"You guys are right. I don't know why I'm worrying, just nerves I guess. I'll try to have a good time tonight and make sure Kari does as well." T.K said with gratitude towards his two friends.  
"So what's your plan for tonight?" Cody asked.  
"Well I'm picking her up at 7 o'clock, taking her to see a movie, dinner, then maybe a walk through the park depending on the time." T.K said sounding a bit more like himself.  
"Pulling out all the stops then, sounds like fun. What movie are you taking her to see?" Davis asked.  
"I thought maybe Resident Evil"  
"Err, T.K are you sure Kari's going to like that movie?" Cody asked sounding slightly worried.  
"Sure. She loves films like that, she told me a few weeks back. In fact her favourite's Alien. She said how much she wanted to see Resident Evil, so after I asked her out and we arranged the date I made the proper arrangements and booked the seats." T.K said sounding very pleased with himself.  
"You really have thought of everything." Davis said sounding very impressed. With that the bell went signalling the end of the lunch break. So Cody said his goodbyes to Davis and T.K, as he had to go to a different classroom, and they all left for the afternoons lessons.

The rest of the day passed without incident, however it seamed to T.K that time was moving slowly on purpose to prevent him from getting home. When the bell finally went signalling the end of the day and the end of the term almost all the students cheered and T.K practically ran out of the class. He said a hurried "See you tomorrow" to Davis and headed towards the door where he ran into Yolei and Cody. "You're lucky, you just missed Kari." Yolei said. The trio were now walking back to their apartment block. "So Cody tells me that you have everything planned for tonight"  
"That's right, I made all the plans and arrangements last week, I booked the movie tickets and made reservations at the restaurant"  
"Davis was right you really have pulled out all the stops and thought of everything." Cody said sound just as impressed as Davis had. "Have you decided what you are going to wear?" Yolei asked.  
"I thought I would get Matt to help me with that." T.K answered. Matt Ishida was T.K's older brother and one of the original eight members of the digi-destined. They didn't get to see each other much as their parents had divorced and T.K had gone to live with his mother and Matt with his farther. However, recently their mother had taken a job in another district and instead of moving T.K again their parents had thought it best if Matt and his farther moved into T.K's apartment. This was good for T.K as he got to spend much more time with Matt, but now very rarely got to see his mother.  
"Are you sure that's wise, taking fashion advise from Matt. I mean he is in a rock band after all." Said Yolei.  
"No, but it's a kind of courtesy thing, and besides he wants to give me some advice." Answered T.K grinning to himself.  
"Ooh worrying, I had the older sibling advice from my sister before my first date with Ken. Trust me it's useless." She said this also grinning. Ken Ichijouji was the last person to join the digi-destined; as before he did he was the Digimon Emperor, self-elected evil overlord of the digital world. The group fought him on many occasions before finally making him see the error of his ways. It was a while after this that he joined the group. Yolei had been interested in him for some time before they found out that he was the Emperor, and even after her feelings didn't disappear so two months ago they started dating. What surprised Yolei the most was that he asked her out; she had no idea that he had the same feelings for her.  
By this time they had reached their apartment block. They got into an elevator and pressed for T.K's floor. The trip up was in silence and T.K only spoke when he reached his floor. He said "Well I'll see you tomorrow in the park"  
"Why there?" Cody asked.  
"Izzy wants to meet us there, he said he had some big announcement to make so he wants us there for midday"  
"Okay then, I wonder what Izzy wants, he probably bought a new computer. See you tomorrow, and good luck for tonight." Yolei said as the lift doors closed and T.K shouted back a hurried "Thank you," and left for his apartment. Izzy Izumi was the resident computer expert of the digi-destined and was always coming up with new theories to do with this and that, so impromptu meetings called by Izzy were quite commonplace. He was most often found in the company of Joe Kido, the resident medic of the group. He was a year older than the rest of the older members and was studying to become a doctor.

Meanwhile, Kari had already got home and was being grilled by her brother. Tai Kamiya was also a member of the original eight digi-destined and was the leader of the group. Everyone looked up to him, but none more so than Davis. Davis saw him as a role model and mentor and even owned Tai's goggles. Tai had given then to him on his first trip into the digital world a year ago after he broke his own. Tai was dating another member of the group, Sora Takenouchi. They had been the closest friends of the group, next to Kari and T.K, and had started dating a little over six months ago. Sora was the same age as Tai, Matt and Izzy. As she and Tai were together, she was very rarely seen out of Tai's company. Tonight was no different, she was at Tai's apartment under the pretext of seeing Tai, but she wanted to make sure Kari looked her best for T.K. "Well, where is he taking you?" Tai asked Kari.  
"For the third time, I don't know, he said it would be a surprise and that he has already taken care of everything. Why are you so interested anyway"  
"I just want to make sure that we don't run into you two and spoil your evening"  
"So what are you two up to tonight then"  
"We haven't decided yet"  
"Kari it's a quarter past six, shouldn't you be getting ready now." Sora broke into the conversation Tai and Kari were having.  
"Oh god, is it that late already. Are we going to have time to get me ready before T.K gets here?" Kari asked starting to panic. Sora broke into a wide grin.  
"You really are new to all of this, you should always be at least five minuets late. It adds to the impact of your entrance"  
"So it's true!" Tai shouted, at this both Sora and Kari started giggling. "Everyone said I was just being paranoid, but you do make us wait." He continued.  
"Come on Kari, let's get you ready and leave Tai to his conspiracy theories." Sora said still giggling, and with that they left for Kari's room.

Over at T.K's apartment, things weren't going quite as smoothly.  
"I am not wearing a suit, I don't want to look like James Bond. We're only going to the movies and then for some dinner." T.K shouted at Matt who was trying to persuade him into wearing a black tie dinner suit.  
"But some places require you to wear this sort of dinner suit." "This place doesn't, I checked before I made the reservations." T.K protested.  
"You really have thought of everything." Matt said sounding highly impressed that his little brother would have thought of things like that.  
"Okay, you're the third person to have told me that today, I just like to be prepared for things like this, and before you ask yes I have plenty of money. I got dad to leave me some before he left this morning." Like his mother, T.K's father worked a lot. But unlike his mother he didn't move around as much. T.K's father worked at the Odaiba television station, he worked long hours and was very rarely at home this meant that T.K and Matt had the place to them selves most of the time.  
"Okay then forget the suit, but at least wear a shirt. A proper one mind, not one of those t-shirts that you are always wearing, you want to look good for Kari"  
"I know and I am grateful for the help, thanks Matt. Didn't you have some advice you wanted to pass on to me?" T.K asked sounding slightly apprehensive.  
"Oh yeah," Matt said is if just remembering. Then, as if breaking into a long speach he said, "Don't make an idiot out of your self tonight and do something stupid." There was a pause.  
"That's it." T.K said shocked.  
"Yeah, what were you expecting me to say, be the perfect gentleman and eat with your mouth closed and all that stuff"  
"Something like that"  
"Come on T.K, I know you too well. I know you would do all that anyway so what would be the point of me telling you to behave like that"  
"Thanks Matt, for having faith in me"  
"What are big brothers for? Hey shouldn't you get going, it's ten to seven, you don't want to keep Kari waiting"  
"Yeah you're right. I better hurry." T.K said, hurriedly putting on the shirt that Matt had been brandishing at him. He then grabbed his jacket, put on his shoes and left shouting "See you later." As the door closed. This was followed by Matt shouting "Good luck," through the door, but he couldn't tell if T.K had heard him.

Over at the Kamiya's, Kari was ready and waiting for T.K to arrive. She waited in her bedroom after taking Sora's advice on making T.K wait. At seven o'clock, on the dot, there was a knock on the door. Tai went to answer it and found T.K waiting on the other side. Instead of greeting T.K in a usual manner, Tai just looked at his watch and said to T.K, "On time I see." He had a big grin on his face and held the door open for T.K to enter. T.K got Tai's joke and replied by saying "really I thought I was ten minuets late." He was also grinning, but this was more with nerves. As the pair were walking into the lounge Tai said, "Kari will be out in a minute, she's just putting the finishing touches to her self"  
"Thanks." Was T.K's reply.  
"So what are you two doing tonight?" Was Tai's next question.  
"Well I thought we would go catch a movie then go for some dinner and see what happens from there"  
"She's not dragging you to see Resident Evil is she, she hasn't shut up about going to see that for weeks"  
"Actually, yes. I booked the tickets last week as well as made the reservations for the restaurant, but she doesn't know about any of this yet, it's all a surprise"  
"Wow," Tai said with admiration, "You really have thought..." But the rest of that sentence was cut off by T.K saying,  
"Don't say that, everyone has said that to me today and it's getting a little old. So what if I like being prepared for things." He said this with mild irritation, but much amusement. Tai caught on and just grinned at T.K.

It was about this time that the door to Kari's room opened and Sora emerged.  
"Hey Sora." T.K said filling with anticipation.  
"Hey T.K," Sora said also filling with anticipation, but no where near as much as Kari was at this point, "She's ready." She said. Tai stood up to get a better look at Kari. When she came into the lounge there was a stunned silence.  
"Here I am." She said timidly. T.K just looked at her, speechless. Kari was wearing a knee length black dress with a slightly longer, elegant thin white over coat. Sora had done her make up and she had tied her hair back into a short ponytail, Sora had said it would make more a feature of her face if she did this. She looked, in Tai's opinion, to be about 20.  
"You look amazing." T.K finally said after he had regained his power of speech. Kari blushed but replied by saying, "Thank you T.K. You look incredible your self." Now it was T.K's turn to blush. He also looked, in Tai's opinion, to be a lot older than he actually was. After what seemed like hours, Tai finally broke the silence.  
"So are you two leaving, or are or just going to stare at each other all night?" He said sarcastically. "Yeah, we had better go. We don't want to be late." T.K said.  
"Late for what?" Kari asked.  
"That's a surprise." T.K answered, winking at Tai. After what seemed like an appropriate pause Sora said,  
"Well you two have fun tonight." Which was followed by Tai, who said,  
"Make sure you're back by midnight, that was the last thing mum said before dad and her left earlier." Like T.K's parents, Kari and Tai's also worked a lot so it wasn't uncommon for then to be out of town a lot.  
"Okay then." Kari said. T.K then turned to her.  
"Are you ready?" He asked.  
"Let me just grab my bag, then we can go." Answered Kari, and with that after saying goodbye to Tai and Sora they left.

The walk to the theatre was mostly in silence as T.K was still in awe of Kari, and Kari of T.K. When they got there Kari guessed what the first part of the date would be.  
"You're taking me to see Resident Evil?" She asked with growing excitement.  
"Yep, I've had the tickets booked since last week." T.K replied. With that she took T.K's hand and practically ran up to the booking office, dragging T.K behind her. When they arrived there T.K showed the tickets to the clerk and went through.  
"Want some popcorn?" T.K asked.  
"Sure." Kari answered, and then added, "You can't go to the movies and not have popcorn." As if this was the most obvious thing in the world. After they got popcorn and drinks they went to find their seats, still holding hands.  
"I could get used to this." Kari whispered indicating their hands as they sat down. T.K just smiled in reply not knowing what to say, but Kari knew he felt the same. They held hands throughout the movie.

When the movie finished T.K and Kari left the cinema to go onto the restaurant. Kari was talking very excitedly about the film they had just seen. They were still holding hand and were getting very used to it now.  
"That was a great movie," she said, "Especially that bit with the dogs, you nearly covered that guy next to us with popcorn when that bit came on." She said smiling widely at T.K.  
"Well the less said about that the better." He said sounding slightly embarrassed. "Come on we have dinner arrangements now." He said leading Kari towards the restaurant. They walked there with Kari still talking about the film but some of the initial excitement had worn off. When they arrived T.K said "This is the place." It was quite an expensive looking restaurant, but there were a number of people T.K and Kari's age there so it couldn't have been that expensive.  
"This is amazing, when did you find this place?" Kari asked.  
"Actually Matt found it a few weeks back and told me about it, he said it would be perfect for tonight." T.K answered.  
"Well he was right, but it looks a bit full in there, are you sure we will get a table?" Kari asked sounding a bit concerned.  
"Don't worry, I made reservations the same time I booked the movie tickets." T.K said leading her inside. When they got inside they were approached by a waiter.  
"Good evening." He said.  
"Hi, we have reservations under the name Takaishi." T.K said, the waiter checked a list of reservation on a table near the door.  
"Ah yes," the waiter replied, "If you would follow me." He led them to a table near a window overlooking the bay. Once they were seated the waiter went to fetch some menus.  
"This is really beautiful." Kari said looking round the restaurant, then out of the window and finally gazing into T.K's eyes.  
"Well, I'll say something for Matt, he does know a good place to eat. He does enough of it." T.K said returning Kari's stare. She smiled at T.K's joke but didn't reply. They sat in silence looking into each other's eyes until the waiter returned with the menus.  
"Would you like to order drinks?" he asked.  
"Sure," T.K replied, "Kari"  
"I'll just have a mineral water." She answered.  
"And I'll have a coke." T.K replied. The waiter nodded and left to get the drinks. T.K took Kari's hands and held them over the table.  
"You're right. This place really is nice." He said taking his first proper look around. The dining area was set in a large hall with lots of tables of varying sizes. The tables weren't in any particular order and there were several waiters weaving in and out between them, several of the smaller tables were candle lit.  
"Hey T.K, why didn't you get a candle lit table?" Kari asked curiously.  
"It's a long story, but the upshot is that candles and I don't have a very good history, and besides I thought the view would make up it. Why, did you want candles?" T.K asked.  
"No, I was just curious. What sort of history?" She asked now sounding concerned.  
"Ask me some other time it's too much to get into now." T.K replied. At this point the waiter returned with their drinks.  
"Are you ready to order?" He asked. They had completely forgotten about the menus.  
"Not just yet, come back in about five minuets." T.K said to the waiter. They thanked him for the drinks and he left.

The rest of the dinner went smoothly. They talked to each other, after having gotten over the initial shock of seeing each other. When their meals arrived they ate mostly in silence. After they had finished, and left the restaurant, T.K decided that because it was still early enough for them to go for a walk. They walked towards the park holding hands, and when they got there they stopped at a point looking over the beach. They both turned to face the view and T.K put his arm over Kari's shoulder, she reciprocated by slipping an arm round his waste.  
"You really do look beautiful tonight." T.K said turning his head to look at Kari, "Not that you don't always look beautiful, but you look especially beautiful tonight." He added.  
"Thank you T.K. You look really good your self." Kari replied, and then almost immediately afterwards said, "Do you how long I have wanted to say that"  
"About as long as I have waited to do this." T.K said, turning to face Kari completely. He then moved forward and kissed her lightly. Kari stood there speechless, but then moved forward herself and kissed T.K more deeply. After what seemed like an hour to the pair, they broke apart and turned to continue looking out over the beach, arms wrapped around each other again. They stood in silence for a while before T.K said, "You know, we really owe Davis a lot"  
"Whys that?" Kari asked,  
"Well we both know it was because of him we didn't get together before now." T.K said.  
"True, but what does that have to do with anything"  
"Well after my last game a few weeks back he came up to me and told me that although he liked you he wouldn't stand in our way, as it was obvious that we liked each other." After a slight pause Kari said,  
"Wow, I was being mean to him only this morning. That was really nice of him"  
"I know, besides I think he has found someone else." T.K said with a grin.  
"Oh really, who"  
"You know Erin Carter, the British girl from our history class, well she's in Davis's geography class, and well I can see it happening. She always cheers for Davis at his soccer matches"  
"I see what you mean." Kari said.

After a while of standing looking out over the beach and talking they had decided that they would head back, as it was getting quite cold and late. T.K offered to walk Kari home, so they headed back still with their arms around each other. The trip back was much the same as the trip to the cinema, except their silence wasn't because of shock but just because they were enjoying each others company. When they reached Kari apartment Kari said,  
"Thank you so much for tonight, I had such a great time"  
"Thank you for agreeing to come with me, I had a great time too." T.K replied. With that they just looked into each other's eyes before engaging in another kiss. When the broke apart they just looked at each other again, before Kari said.  
"Well good night, I better get in before Tai kills me"  
"Okay then, I better get home as well. I dare say Matt will want to give me 20 questions when I get in. Good night." With that they kissed again and Kari went inside and T.K left for his apartment. Things, in T.K's opinion, couldn't be more perfect.

Little did T.K, or any of the other digi-destined for that matter, know that on the other side of the planet, the British government were getting ready to send the first team into the digital world.

To Be Continued.. 


	2. Something Old, Something New

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 2 - "Something old, something new..."

When Kari got in she found Tai and especially Sora looking towards her with great anticipation.  
"I'm home." She shouted. When they saw that's she was smiling a look of intense relief washed over Tai's face. Although he had gotten used to the idea of Kari being with T.K most of the time, he still wasn't used to the idea of his little sister going on dates and was worried that something might have happened to her. Sora tried telling him that she was going T.K and that he was the last person to let any harm come to Kari, and even though Tai trusted T.K to the end of the earth, he still couldn't help but feel quite anxious. After she had taken off her shoes, she walked into the lounge and sat on the armchair near the sofa as Tai and Sora occupied the sofa. All the time she was very aware that Tai and Sora's eyes were following her every movement. She was still smiling but hadn't said anything else.

"Evening." Tai broke the silence, "you're home early." He said.  
"Well it was getting chilly." Kari replied. More silence then followed, at this Sora nearly exploded.  
"Well." She shouted a little louder than she was expecting. "What happened?" She asked. Kari's smile seemed to be infectious as Sora was now wearing one almost as big. Kari could tell Tai was just as interested to know, but wasn't showing it. Kari's smile, if possible, got even bigger and then she broke into an extremely detailed account of what had happened during the evening, including a nearly perfect run through of the movie.  
"Well thanks for spoiling that for me." Tai said sarcastically, but Kari was still too excited to notice and just carried on with the account of the date. When she had talked for about half an hour she finally ran out of steam and sank back into her chair. She left a small pause before saying,  
"It really was the perfect evening, and T.K, the perfect gentleman. He held all the doors for me and even held my chair at the restaurant." At this Sora nearly burst into tears, she was so happy for Kari. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself." Tai said starting to feel some of the excitement in the room, he was even smiling but nowhere near as broadly as Kari or Sora.  
"Thank you Tai, so what did you two get up to tonight?" Kari asked.  
"Not much, we just stayed here and watched the TV." Tai answered.  
"Oh, sounds fun." Kari said returning Tai's sarcasm. "So Sora how are you getting home tonight? It's getting quite late." Asked Kari. Before Sora had a chance to answer Tai jumped in,  
"She's staying here tonight, don't you remember"  
"Oh yeah, that's why the spare bed was in my room when I came home from school earlier." Kari said remembering; in all her excitement she had forgotten completely that Sora was staying the night. "Well I'm quite tired so I am going to bed now." Kari said abruptly, surreptitiously indicating Sora to follow her. Sora noticed this and said,  
"I'm feeling quite tired too so I think I will join you Kari, night Tai." She said getting up and heading towards Kari's room, after giving Tai a good night kiss.  
"Night Tai." Kari also said and with that Kari and Sora disappeared into Kari's room and closed the door behind them. Tai thinking nothing of this thought that because he was now alone that he may as well go to bed to, and so left for his room.

What Kari had neglected to tell in her all too thorough account of the evening was the more intimate moments between her and T.K. She did this because she knew Tai's reaction would be less than pleased, so she called Sora into her room to finish telling her the details of the date. Since Tai and Sora had started dating Sora had spent more time with Kari and as such Kari now thought of her as an older sister, this meant that she could tell her things that she couldn't tell Tai.  
"Well, what else did you want to tell me that you didn't want Tai to here?" Sora asked. They had sat across from each other cross-legged on Sora's bed.  
"Well me and T.K, we sort of kissed. More than once." Kari answered very excitedly. Sora looked as if she might explode again, "And." She said full of excitement.  
"It was pretty amazing." Kari said. Her smile had grown again and now looked as if it might never disappear. Upon hearing Kari's response, Sora leaned over and hugged her very tightly.  
"Your first date and your first proper kiss all in the same night. I'm so proud of you, wait until Mimi hears about this, she's going to be so happy." Mimi Tachikawa was the last member of the digi-destined. She was part of the original eight and was one of the biggest supporters of Kari and T.K getting together, before Yolei came along, as such Mimi and Yolei got along famously. Mimi had moved to America during the four years that separated the defeat of the dark masters and the uprising of the Digimon Emperor. However, she was able to get into the digital world, and helped battle the Emperor on several occasions.  
"I think I'll let you have the honour of telling her." Kari said giggling. "It really is getting late now so I think I will got to bed, for real this time." Kari continued after leaving a slight pause for giggling.  
"Okay then, good night." Sora said.  
"Night." Kari replied.

When T.K got home he found he didn't have to face 20 questions after all. Matt had fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV playing all to itself. Instead of waking him T.K thought it best to leave him where he was, so he turned off the TV and wrote a quick note that said,  
"Hi Matt.  
I got home safely; saw you were asleep on the couch so thought it best not to wake you. Have gone to bed, see you in the morning.  
-T.K.  
P.S, I wouldn't want to have your neck in the morning"  
He left the note on the table in front of the sofa and went to bed. He wrote the note for two reasons. Firstly so he didn't have to wake Matt up, have to deal with him being angry at being woken up and than have to deal with 20 question about the date, and secondly so Matt wouldn't worry when he woke up and remember that he hadn't seen T.K come in yet.

The following morning was much like the previous day, except a lot warmer, and without the wind. It was quite early when T.K woke up, like the first day of every holiday; he was still running on the school time clock. As hard as he tried he couldn't get back to sleep, so he decided to get up and get breakfast. After he got dressed he left his bedroom and went into the kitchen to find Matt already awake and rubbing his neck.  
"Sleep well?" T.K asked sarcastically.  
"Very funny, you could have woken me up." Matt replied a little annoyed.  
"No way, I've tried that before and it wasn't pleasant." T.K said grinning. There was then a slight pause before Matt said,  
"Well, aren't you going to tell me what happened last night?" Matt was now also grinning. T.K then broke into a very detailed description of the previous nights events omitting nothing.  
"Way to go little bro." Matt said when he was finished, he sounded very impressed with his brother.  
"When's dad getting home?" T.K asked changing the subject.  
"Later tonight, he mentioned something about not waiting up." Matt replied. "Oh and don't forget about Izzy's meeting later"  
"I haven't. So what are your plans for today?" T.K asked, but before Matt had a chance to answer the phone rang. Matt picked up the phone and answered.  
"Hello... It's for you." He said handing the receiver to T.K. Who could be phoning me this early, he thought.  
"Hello"  
"Hey T.K"  
"Davis." T.K said very surprised.  
"What, don't sound so surprised, it's just me"  
"But you're up before ten, and during the holiday as well"  
"So what, it's a nice day"  
"You never fail to surprise me Davis, you know that"  
"Err thanks, I think. Anyway I phoned to see if you wanted to hang in the park this morning and wait for Izzy there"  
"Sure I don't have anything else planned. Is anyone else coming early too"  
"Ken and Yolei might turn up with Cody. But other than them, I don't think so"  
"Cool, I'll meet you there in half an hour. Do you want me to bring anything"  
"No, that's okay, I'm coming prepared"  
"Davis, that is a phrase I never thought I would here you say." T.K said sarcastically.  
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean"  
"Nothing. I'll see you in half an hour"  
"Okay, bye"  
"Bye." And with that T.K handed the phone receiver back to Matt, who then hung it up.  
"What is Davis doing up so early?" Matt asked. Davis's enjoyment of sleep, and his lateness because of it, were well known throughout the group.  
"He wanted to see if I wanted to go down to the park early and wait there for Izzy. But he probably wants to know how last night went"  
"Well he's excited that you two finally got together. We all are. You two have been together so much lately, it's been almost painful waiting for you to go out. You weren't fooling anyone with the 'we're just friends' routine you know." "Was it really that obvious"  
"T.K, even Izzy could tell and spends all his life in his computer"  
"Whatever, anyway I'm heading down to the park in half an hour. Do you want to come with me"  
"Nah, I'm going to head down with Tai and Sora later"  
"Okay then, I'm going to get ready an go then." And with that T.K left for the bathroom.

When T.K reached the park he didn't have to look long to find Davis. As it was still early there were few people in the park and finding Davis was easy. When Davis said he was coming prepared he wasn't lying, he brought with him a large cooler of drinks, a small CD player and a selection of CDs, one of his many soccer balls, a bag full of towels for people to lie on and sunbathe and sunscreen. T.K was shocked to find Davis so prepared, but was more shocked to find Kari sitting on the grass next to him talking animatedly, about last night, T.K guessed. He had no idea Kari was going to be there so early as Davis didn't mention her on the phone. T.K approached them.  
"Good morning." He said startling them slightly as they hadn't seen him arrive.  
"Good morning T.K." Kari said running up to him. She grabbed him into a tight hug then kissed him.  
"It is now." T.K replied wearing a big smile.  
"Hey T.K, want a drink?" Davis asked opening the cooler, ignoring the gratuitous show of affection this early in the morning.  
"No thanks, I've just cleaned my teeth, you know nothing goes well with toothpaste." T.K answered sitting down next to Kari. "You really weren't lying when you said you were coming prepared." T.K said looking at the amount of things Davis had brought with him. Davis chose to ignore this comment as it was still too early for sarcasm and he couldn't think of a witty enough retort.  
"I've just been hearing about last night." He said changing the subject "Oh, and what have you been hearing about last night?" T.K asked, casting a sly grin at Kari.  
"I was just telling Davis how much fun I had last night and how it was the perfect evening." Kari said grinning back a T.K. They began kissing again.  
"Will you cut that out, it's far too early, I'm still digesting my breakfast." Davis said in sarcastic mock disgust.  
"Sorry." T.K and Kari said together and resigned to hugging each other. There was then a slight, almost uncomfortable, pause. All present could feel it so Kari quickly changed the subject.  
"What do you think Izzy wants to see us all for later?" She asked the other two.  
"Yolei thinks he might have bought a new computer and he wants to show it off." T.K answered. At that everybody laughed and the uncomfortable atmosphere lifted.  
"Well we haven't seen each other as a group for ages, maybe he wants to just get us all together again, and with the start of the holiday what better time." Kari said.  
"Maybe, but I think Yolei might just have the right idea." Davis said.  
"Well he picked a nice day for it." T.K said "The guy on the news, this morning, said that this could be the start of the heat wave." Davis said. T.K looked puzzled.  
"Okay, first you're up before ten during the holiday, then you actually come prepared for something. Now I find you've been watching the news. Has something happened to you that we should know about?" T.K asked Davis extremely sarcastically, but still with the puzzled, concerned look on his face.  
"What, it's a nice day and I thought I would get an early start and get a good place in the park, and I wasn't really watching the news it was just on"  
"That's a relief." Said Kari joining T.K's joke.

As the morning went on Kari, Davis and T.K were joined by the rest of the team. As each new group arrived T.K and Kari had to give an account of their date the previous night. Joe was the last to arrive before Izzy at ten to midday. When he arrived he was panting and had obviously been running.  
"Whew, made it. I thought I was going to be late." He said between breaths.  
"Isn't Izzy with you?" Cody asked "No, he said he had to go and pick someone up." Joe replied still trying to catch his breath. When they heard him say 'Someone' everyone's face broke into the same puzzled expression. Very few people knew about them being the digi-destined and about their adventures in the Digital World, and no one could think of who might want to attend a meeting.  
"Did he say who?" Asked Tai who seemed the most concerned. As the leader of the team it was primarily his responsibility to keep the group secret from as many people as possible. For the next ten minuets the group theorised who Izzy might be bringing to a digi-destined meeting.

As everyone wasn't paying much attention, when Izzy arrived it came as quite a surprise to the group.  
"Greetings." He said. He had his laptop with him, which came as no surprise to anyone. What did surprise people was that he didn't set it up right away.  
"I'm glad to see everyone made it." He said, adding "On time." Looking vaguely in Davis's direction. Luckily Davis didn't notice this. Once everyone had stopped talking, Izzy continued.  
"I called this meeting to discuss three important issues that have arisen lately. Firstly and probably most importantly, we have a new member of the team joining us." When he said this everyone's face lit up, both at the prospect at meeting a new digi-destined and at understanding whom Izzy went to collect. No one thought to suggest a new member of the team.  
"She is a digi-destined from England who moved here earlier this year." Just then a tall, strikingly beautiful girl stepped out from behind the large tree that the group were sitting beneath. She had long black hair and was wearing a black t-shirt and black leather trousers.  
"Hi," she said quite uncertainly with a very strong British accent.  
"I'm Erin Carter. But you can call me Carter if you'd like, everyone else does." She continued in the same uncertain, nervous tone of voice. There was a unanimous hello from the group. Davis then stood up.  
"Hi, I'm Davis. I'm the leader of this group of digi-destined." Tai gave him a blank stare and Davis then looked a bit sheepish.  
"Well second in command after Tai there." He said indicating Tai. "Allow me to do the introductions. That's Tai, as I just said, the proper leader of the group. Next to him is Sora, Tai's girlfriend. Then we have Joe the resident trainee doctor, and next to him is Cody, the youngest of the group. Next to him are Yolei and Ken, our latest addition to the group before you. Next to them is T.K and Kari, they're recently a couple so don't be surprised is you see them hugging or something, it's quite off putting especially in the morning but you get used to it. On Tai's other side is Matt, he's T.K's brother then we have Izzy, who I guess you already know." As he said each of their names they gave a little wave in the direction of Erin, which she returned. When Davis mentioned T.K and Kari's more 'inappropriate' behaviour everyone laughed, including Kari and T.K and also Erin.

"Thank you Davis, I'm sure that could have waited, but at least it's out of the way now." Said Izzy who sounded a little annoyed. Whenever he was trying to explain something to the group, someone would interrupt him in some way. Be it Davis arriving late or Yolei asking a question at the wrong time or Matt making a wisecrack. Davis had now sat back down but Erin was still standing with Izzy.  
"Now Erin here has a rather unique digivice, which is why I called a meeting to introduce her." When Izzy said this Erin retrieved her digivice from a thigh pocket on her trousers, which she then proceeded to show the group. It was a D-3 type digivice, but instead of being bi-coloured like the rest of the D-3s it was only a single colour, the blue/green of the original digivices.  
"That's weird." Cody said looking at the D-3.  
"It certainly is." Replied Izzy, "What's even more strange is it's origin. It didn't change from a normal digivice like the rest of the D-3s"  
"No, it came from my computer like that." Erin said "But what does this mean? I thought we were the only ones to have D-3s so we could compete with the power from the Emperor's D-3." Yolei said with one of her miss-timed questions. She stopped referring to the emperor as Ken several months ago and now just called him the emperor.  
"Well that's what we aim to find out, which brings me on to my second point. Gennai has expressed a wish to meet with us soon, after he heard about the strange D-3, he was most eager to examine it. He also mentioned something about finding something of great importance to us." Gennai was a very old being who lived in the Digital World, but it was unknown if he was actually a Digimon, or rather something else. He had been a friend to the digi-destined and had helped them on many occasions. It was believed that Gennai helped select the digi-destined originally.

"Well if anyone knows what's going on, it'll be Gennai." Said Davis. He then added, looking in Erin's direction, "Hey Carter, why don't you come sit down, I think Izzy has finished with you now." She looked at Izzy and he nodded. She replaced her D-3 in her pocket and sat down between T.K and Davis.  
"We have decided to meet sometime in the coming week so that all of us could attend, which brings me to my third point. Mimi is returning to live in Odaiba." When Izzy said this the entire group cheered, except Erin. Sora cheered loudest, as Mimi and her were best friends before she left for America. This also meant that she could tell Mimi about T.K and Kari face to face and not over an e-mail.  
"She e-mailed me earlier this week and told me to inform you as a group. She flies in the day after tomorrow." Izzy continued. As it now seemed that Izzy's meeting was finished, excited chartering broke out throughout the group. Izzy sat down at his computer and was soon approached by Yolei, who was just as interested in computers as Izzy, and started their own conversation.

Erin, although feeling a little overwhelmed, was accepted by the group immediately and was soon in a conversation with Davis, Kari and T.K.  
"So how long have you been digi-destined?" Davis asked, he was obviously trying to make a good impression for Erin.  
"Well I got my digivice a little over two years ago. I have only been to the Digital World once and that was shortly after I got it. I wasn't there long, I only met one Digimon so I guess he was my partner, I didn't even find out his name, all I remember of him was that he had really big ears. But then something happened and I got sent back." Erin replied.  
"Don't worry about that, we'll get you back and I'm sure Gennai can help you find your partner." Davis said smiling widely at Erin. There was a slight gap in the conversation, and then T.K changed the subject completely.  
"Aren't you hot wearing all that black?" He asked, everyone in the small group laughed before Erin answered.  
"No actually. I don't know if you have ever been there but England is quite cold and it takes a lot for me to get hot, even in weather like this." Erin answered still smiling. Just then Ken came to join their group.  
"Hey everyone." He said.  
"Hi, Ken right," Erin, said back. "So you're the newbie of the group, not counting me of course"  
"Well I wouldn't say that, I've known these guys since they became digi-destined, well the newer ones anyway. But that's a long story and I'd really rather not get into it right now"  
"Okay, you and the purple hared girl, I'm sorry I'm really useless with names, you seem to be pretty close, are you going out?" Erin asked. Ken blushed slightly.  
"Oh Yolei, yeah we've been going out for a while now"  
"That's cool. You lot all seem to be in couples, I hope you've left someone for me." Erin said, casting a sly grin in Davis' direction. He didn't notice this either.

As the afternoon wore on, everybody introduced them selves properly to Erin and she was getting to know everyone quite well. Matt had been sent to re stock the cooler, as he was the only one who brought any money with him; they also decided that they would eat in the park. They decided on pizza and sent Matt, again, to go and order for them, they did however all say that they would pay him back as soon as they could get their hands on some money. After lunch the boys decided that they would play soccer while the girls sunbathed. By the time they had finished playing, they had lost track of who had won so decided to call it a draw. T.K collapsed by the side of Kari.  
"T.K you're in my light." She said jokingly.  
"Sorry." T.K said as he moved round to Kari's other side.  
"Now you're in my light." Yolei said joining Kari's joke. The rest of the boys had collapsed in a similar fashion, but under the shade of the tree, so T.K went to join them. They were talking about the game they had just played and Davis was arguing that his team won and it wasn't a draw. Everyone else was now too tired to pay too much attention to him and so just let him get on with it. One by one the girls slowly joined them under the tree, Kari was the first to join them and Yolei was the last, she was getting all that she could from the sun before it went down. It was now quite late in the afternoon, so after one final drink from the cooler they all helped pack up Davis' supplies.

They all left the way they had arrived, in small groups. Cody, Yolei and Ken were the first to leave followed by Tai, Sora and Matt. Izzy and Joe then left leaving Erin, Davis, Kari and T.K. As they all lived in the same direction, they all helped Davis carry his things. Kari's apartment block was the first one they came to. T.K decided to walk Kari to her door and so left Davis and Erin alone.  
"So what do you think of the Odaiba branch of the digi-destined?" He asked.  
"You are all the nicest people I have ever met, I mean, I had friends back in England. But you all accepted me immediately, I think I am going to get on fine with you all." She said smiling at Davis.  
"Well we have had practice at accepting people at short notice. The group started out with only Tai, Matt, Sora, Mimi, Joe, Izzy, Kari and T.K. Then Yolei, Cody and me came along about a year ago, and then Ken. Besides we have met several other digi-destined around the world. I guess it's because we all have one thing in common that makes us able to relate to each other better and accept others into our group." Davis said smiling back. Before Erin had a chance to reply T.K returned looking a bit flushed. Erin eyed him suspiciously.  
"What were you to getting up to in the lift on the way up?" She asked in a very knowing way.  
"Nothing." T.K answered very sheepishly rearranging his hat. No more was said on the matter, which came as something as a relief to T.K. He picked up the things he left as well as the things Kari was carrying.

The next apartment block they came to was T.K's. He redistributed the things he was carrying between Davis and Erin, said goodbye and left for his apartment. Davis and Erin carried on walking.  
"So where do you live?" Davis asked.  
"There actually." Erin replied indicating the block they were walking past.  
"Cool practically next door. Err don't you want to stop"  
"What, and leave you to carry all this back to your apartment. There no way you could carry all this lot by yourself. How did you get it down this morning"  
"Actually my dad gave me a lift down in his car on his way to work"  
"Well there you go, you need all the help you can get." She said smiling at him again.  
"Thanks." Was Davis's only reply. They carried on to Davis's apartment in silence until they reached his door. Erin unloaded the things she was carrying and turned to face Davis.  
"Thanks for that," Davis said straightening up. "Do you want to come in for a drink or something?" He asked.  
"Thanks, but I really have to go now." Erin said looking at her watch. "I guess I will see you tomorrow then, probably." She added.  
"Sure." Davis replied. Erin then reached into one of the pockets in her trousers, pulled out a piece of paper and quickly scribbled something on it.  
"Here," she said, "This is my phone number, call me tomorrow. Oh and if you see the others before I do pass it on." She added.  
"Thanks," Davis said, "I'll do that. Well I guess I'll see you tomorrow then"  
"Okay, bye." Erin said. With that Davis shut his door and Erin turned to go back to her apartment.

On her way back, she was approached by a man in a black suit.  
"Agent 4-5-2, you have made contact I presume." The man spoke in an English accent.  
"I have, listen, I really don't think this is a good idea. I've heard some of the things this group have done, they have risked their lives to protect the Digital World and would do it again in an instant if they thought it was under attack"  
"Well let's hope it doesn't come to that"  
"Anyway what are you doing here, I resigned"  
"Reverse activation clause in your contract"  
"Well this is the last job I am doing for you people, then you leave me alone, understand"  
"Absolutely, report back in one week." The man then quickened his pace and left Erin to walk back alone.

To Be Continued... 


	3. Everytime I Look For You

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 3 - "What was lost: Part 1 -  
Everytime I look for you..."

The following day passed without incident, the weather was as nice as it had been all week. T.K and Kari decided to have a lazy day at the beach and were joined by Tai and Sora in the afternoon. Matt was practising with his band all day. Davis decided to show Erin round Odaiba. Although she had lived there for several months, he decided that the grand tour, digi-destined style, was in order. He took her to all the places that had been affected in some way by Digimon. Cody, Yolei and Ken went to see a movie, they all wanted to see something different so they saw all three instead. Cody spent most of his time with Yolei because she was his oldest friend, and although he sometimes felt like a spare wheel when Ken was with them he never felt uncomfortable. Neither did Ken or Yolei so this meant that Cody was usually always found with the pair. Joe spent the day studying and Izzy spent the day upgrading his computer.

On their way back from the beach, T.K and Kari ran into Erin and Davis sitting outside a small café. Davis invited the couple to join them, which they did and T.K went to buy a round of drinks inside.  
"What have you two been doing all day?" Davis asked Kari.  
"We've been at the beach," Kari answered, "What have you two been doing?" She asked in return.  
"Davis has shown me all the places that have been involved with the Digimon or your group of digi-destined in some way." Erin answered.  
"Yeah, we went all the way up to Highton View Terrace then to the TV station, all round those places." Davis added.  
"Sounds like you had a fun day then." Kari said.  
"It's the most fun I've had for a long time, plus I got to find out a lot more about you lot." Erin said "Nothing bad, I hope." T.K had returned with a tray of drinks. He said this with a sly grin at Davis.  
"What are you implying?" Davis asked T.K with the same sly grin.  
"Nothing." T.K answered innocently.  
"No need to worry," Erin said, missing the joke, "Davis has said nothing bad about any of you"  
"Well that's good to know." Kari said. There was than a short pause before Erin changed the subject.  
"So how long have you two been going out?" She asked T.K and Kari.  
"Since Friday." Kari answered.  
"Wow, Davis said you guys were new, but not that new. You two look so comfortable with each other it looks as if you have been together for years." Erin said surprised.  
"Well they say they've been going out since Friday, but that's only officially." Davis said "Oh," said Erin, "I'm intrigued." She said inquisitively, looking in Kari and T.K's direction, but T.K had now become very interested in stirring his drink, even though he was drinking water, and Kari was now tying her shoelaces. Erin glanced at Davis with one eyebrow raised.  
"They're a bit shy about the whole thing." He said reading Erin's expression. There was a slight gap in the conversation before Erin said,  
"That doesn't make me less intrigued"  
"Oh, you want me to explain," Davis said, "Well, they have known each other most of their lives and been best friends the whole time. They were the youngest members of the original eight digi-destined to go the Digital World, and in this last year they have spent so much time together, they just got closer." He left a pause before adding in a lowered tone, but still loud enough for T.K and Kari to hear, "But if you ask me they have wanted to be more than just friends for a lot longer." He winked very obviously at Erin.  
"Oh, that explains it." Erin said, winking back at Davis. She then said "But why did it take you so long to go out if that was the case?" She directed the question at Kari and T.K but expected Davis to answer again. However before anyone got a chance to answer, Erin's pager went off. She read the message with a growing look of anger on her face.  
"Everything alright?" Davis asked reading her expression.  
"Yeah," she replied distractedly standing up, "I have to go now so I guess I catch up with you tomorrow." She said looking at the three people still sitting at the table.  
"Okay then, see you tomorrow. Don't forget about Mimi's party." Davis said. Kari and T.K each said "bye" and Erin headed off in the direction of the park.  
"Well I guess I had better be getting off home as well." Davis said to the other two.  
"Okay then." Kari said, and with that Davis left to.  
"Want another drink?" T.K asked Kari.  
"No I have to go look up some recipes for tomorrow." Kari replied.  
"Good point, I've got to check out some new drink recipes and try and get Matt to taste them." T.K said laughing. "I'll walk you home." He said taking Kari's hand, and with that they to left.

When they had heard the news that Mimi was coming back to Odaiba the group decided that a party was in order, and although it was short notice they needed to make preparations. Izzy had told them that Mimi was moving into Sora's apartment block, so the group decided to have the party at Sora's place, the bonus being Sora had the biggest apartment. Several phone conversations later and it was decided that Sora, Kari Matt and Cody would get the food ready, as it was decided by the group that they were the best cooks, and T.K was in charge of the drinks as it was decided that he mixed the best drinks. The others were set the task of getting the apartment ready, getting decorations and that sort thing. They had less than a day to get everything ready, as they had all taken the previous day off. They were to meet early at Sora's apartment to make plans for the arrangement of furniture, where the decorations would go, and what food they would cook. However Davis, as usual, was late, although today he had the excuse of having to pick Erin up on the way. The truth was that Erin was ready half an hour before Davis had picked her up and he actually overslept. Once everyone had arrived and the arrangements were made, everybody was set to work. Yolei had volunteered to get all the food and drink supplies from her parent's shop, so she left with Cody and Matt. The others, who were not to be in the kitchen all day, started to move the furniture in the room. Although the lounge was large, it wasn't large enough for thirteen people plus Sora and Mimi's parents to fit in comfortably, so space had to be made. They moved all the large furniture to the edge of the room, but left some small chairs for people to sit on. They then started on the decorations. By this time Yolei had returned with Cody and Matt, each carrying two rather full looking bags. They went to join Kari, Sora and T.K in the kitchen. Yolei put her bags down, was thanked by the five remaining people in the kitchen, and went into the lounge to help with the decorations. Two of the bags contained various bottles, which T.K took to one corner of the kitchen while the contents of the other four were divided between Cody, Sora, Kari and Matt.

Throughout the day various smells came through from the kitchen, as well as some raised voices saying things along the lines of "Who is using the microwave, I had it booked next." And,  
"Who used all the salt?" And more often than anything else,  
"Matt, you're in my way!" As well as some more unsavoury phrases. In fact the only person who wasn't shouting was T.K. He was busy concocting various drinks from a large book he had. In the lounge things were going much better. The others had laid a table ready for putting the food on, had put up countless balloons and streamers and had hung a large banner saying 'Welcome Home Mimi.' They were almost finished putting the decorations up when the first batch of food arrived from the kitchen. Almost as one, the people in the lounge surrounded the table where the food was being placed, and started to take things off the plates.  
"Hey, that's for later." Matt said angrily, scowling at the others. They all muttered sorry and went back to putting the decorations up.

By now it was getting quite late and Mimi was almost due to arrive. Sora had gone with her parents to pick Mimi's family up from the airport, so the others had very little time to finish preparing the apartment. The food was all done now and the table was full of plates with various items on them. There was also a large bowl of punch and several unmarked bottles of drinks that T.K had made. Once everything was finished they put some paper plates and plastic cups for the food and drink on the table. This was Davis's idea, as he didn't fancy having to wash all the dishes. So Yolei was sent, once again, to her parents shop to fetch the plates and cups as well as several rubbish bags for everything to go in at the end on the night. Now everything was ready, all they had to do was wait for Mimi and her family to arrive, which they did shortly afterwards.

They went first to their own apartment to drop their things off, then Sora's mother said,  
"Why don't you two go down to our apartment? We'll be through in a while. A few of your friends are there to welcome you back." She directed the last sentence at Mimi.  
"Okay." Sora said and they left. They had been careful not to mention anything about the party so it would be a surprise for Mimi. Sora and Mimi didn't say much in the lift on the way down but Sora did say.  
"I have something of the greatest importance to tell you later." She said this very excitedly, but Mimi didn't push for an explanation now as she was excited about meeting all her friends for the first time in what seemed like years, but was actually just under a year. She came to visit just after the defeat of Malomyotismon. When they got to Sora's apartment, Sora opened the door and a loud cheer came from inside. Mimi almost burst out crying and charged inside to the lounge where she was practically mobbed by everyone inside. She spent a good ten minuets hugging and kissing everyone in the room, even Davis to his surprise. She was then introduced to Erin by Davis, who was still blushing from his greeting. In all the commotion she hadn't noticed all of the decorations that had been put up of the table of food, it was only after she had greeted everyone that she noticed the apartment.  
"Oh wow, look at this place. This must have taken you days to prepare. And look at all the food." She said taking in everything in the room.  
"Actually, all this only took us a few hours to do." Tai said smugly "Well how ever long it took, I love it. Thanks you guys." Mimi said before starting another round of hugs.

A short while later, after Mimi had got over the initial shock of seeing all her friends and the party, Sora come over to her. She cornered Mimi while she was getting a drink so she wouldn't disturb a conversation she was having with Erin.  
"Mimi," Sora said excitedly, "About this important thing I have to tell you." She now had Mimi's undivided attention, although she did have a look of slight concern on her face.  
"It's about T.K and Kari." Sora blurted out at once. When Mimi heard this, all looks of concern disappeared from her face and were replaced with looks of intense happiness.  
"When did it happen?" Mimi obviously didn't need any further explanation.  
"Friday." Was Sora's response. Mimi started giggling heavily, and totally forgetting her conversation with Erin, went to find Kari and T.K. When she did find them she went straight over to Kari and gave her a very big bear-hug and practically shouted,  
"Congratulations!" In her ear. When she had finished hugging Kari she turned to T.K. He started to back away, but Mimi was too quick for him, and caught him in an equally big bear-hug.  
"You heard then." T.K said sarcastically, gasping for breath under the pressure of Mimi's hug.  
"I'm so happy for you two." Mimi said ecstatically.  
"We gathered." Kari said massaging her neck, but with a growing smile on her face. Mimi then completely changer her tone of voice and almost shouted,  
"What took you so long"  
"Long story." Kari and T.K said together, looking at each other. Mimi looked interested but then noticed Erin and said,  
"You will have to tell me another time, I just forgot I was talking to Erin." And with a last, very happy, look at the pair, Mimi went back to talk to Erin.

As the evening wore on, the party wound down. The music got quieter and the food and drink levels had decreased dramatically. Everyone had complimented the cooks on what a good job they had done, and they especially complimented T.K on his drink mixing ability. By the time Izzy and Joe were leaving, Cody was asleep on the couch, Yolei and Ken were on the balcony, Davis and Erin were having an animated conversation in one corner of the room with Matt, and Kari, T.K, Sora, Tai and Mimi were all talking in another corner of the room.  
"Well, I'll see you all in the park tomorrow." Joe said. They had arranged to meet in the park tomorrow to discuss going to the Digital World.  
"Okay then, see you tomorrow, and thanks for this it was really wonderful." Mimi said, hugging Izzy and Joe as they left.  
"I guess we should make a move as well, it is getting a bit late." Davis said. He then looked over at the couch and saw Cody. "It doesn't look like Cody will be going anywhere soon though." He added. No one had noticed Cody before now and were quite shocked to see him asleep on the sofa.  
"Somebody's going to have to wake him up and I'm glad it's not going to have to be me. Goodnight." Davis said grinning as he and Erin headed for the door.  
"He's right," Sora said, "Somebody does need to wake him up"  
"Lets get Yolei to do it, she's known him longest." Tai said quickly. T.K then glanced over to the balcony where Yolei and Ken were.  
"I think she's a little busy at the moment." He said.  
"Well, we'll have to wait 'til she's finished then." Mimi said grinning. She then changed the subject quite abruptly.  
"So Davis and Erin, is there anything going on between them?" She asked the others.  
"Not as far as we know, but I wouldn't hold your breath for it to stay that way," Kari said, and then added in an undertone, "And they all thought T.K and me were obvious." Everyone heard this and started laughing. Several minuets passed before Yolei and Ken finally came in from the balcony. Tai went over to her to tell her to wake Cody up. It took a further ten minuets for her to work up the courage to wake him, like most of the members of the group Cody didn't take kindly to being woken up. She finally woke him up and he was soon joining in the conversation with the rest of the group, although everyone kept at a safe but polite distance. It was getting really late now so everyone decided that it would be a good idea to go home before people started worrying. So after a final hug and thank you from Mimi, T.K and Kari got an extra big hug, they all left leaving Mimi with Sora.

On the way back to their various apartment blocks, they chatted happily about Mimi coming back to Odaiba. Yolei then asked Ken how he was getting back to his apartment as he lived in an entirely different part of the district. He said he would probably have to get the bus, but then Matt suggested the he stay at their place as Matt and T.K's father was working tonight. Ken agreed to this and went with Matt, T.K, Cody and Yolei to their apartment block. When the three boys reached Matt and T.K's apartment, Ken made a quick phone call to his parents to let them know he was staying with T.K and Matt. When this was done, Ken and Matt went into the lounge to watch the TV while T.K went to get everyone a drink. When T.K came in with the drinks he found the others watching an old black and white horror film, which soon had them all in hysterics, as it was so bad. Not long after that all three were asleep on their respective seats, and in T.K's case the couch. They stayed there all night leaving the TV to play to itself.

T.K was the first to wake up the following morning. When he saw the other two sleeping on the chairs in the lounge he thought it would be a good idea to wake them up or they would be in serious agony when they did wake up. It was quite late when they were all finally awake; T.K noticed a message had been left on the answer machine. It was from Tai telling them to meet in the park at 11:30. The time was already 11:00 so they all had to have hurried showers and dash out quickly, Matt and Ken still massaging the knots out of their necks. They arrived in the park just on time; the only people missing were Davis and Joe.

"What time do you call this?" Erin called out sarcastically. She had obviously gotten tired of waiting for Davis and headed down to the park on her own. "I bet it was you holding them up, wasn't it Newbie?" In the few days that she had known the digi-destined she had got to know them quite well. Her and Ken had taken to calling each other Newbie, while Davis was the only one who called her Carter as she had said during their first meeting. The others just called her Erin, which she didn't mind but she preferred to be called by her surname.  
"We over slept and missed the message." Matt said breathlessly as they neared the group. They had been running in order to get to the park on time.  
"I see we weren't the only ones who over slept." T.K said noticing the other missing digi-destined, he on the other hand wasn't out of breath and neither was Ken. This was because they played sports and were more used to running than Matt was. "Where's Joe, this is becoming quite a bad habit of his. Has he been spending too much time with Davis?" T.K continued. Almost at that exact moment Joe came running up to the group.  
"No, the battery in my alarm clock ran out." He answered T.K's question just as breathlessly as Matt. The whole group laughed as the four stragglers joined them. T.K was greeted warmly by Kari, as was Ken by Yolei. This quite shocked Tai, as he hadn't seen any of Kari and T.K's closer moments, he didn't say anything though and was actually quite happy for them. Davis, on the other hand, did say something.  
"Are you two doing that again?" He asked rhetorically as he joined the group. "I've told you before, not before midday." He added jokingly. The whole group laughed at this comment, which made Kari and T.K blush quite badly, but they laughed with the rest of the group. His joke had the required effect of taking the attention off him being late. Davis sat down with the rest of the group.

"Now that we are all here," Tai said getting the groups attention. He looked in Davis' direction as he said this; he obviously noticed Davis' usual lateness. "We can decide when we are going to go into the Digital World to see Gennai"  
"Well as this is the holiday, we can go anytime we like." Mimi said getting straight back into the swing of things after her absence in America.  
"This is true, but I suggest we go sooner rather than later as he did make it sound quite important." Izzy said.  
"Okay so how about before the end of the week." Yolei added to the discussion.  
"That would make sense." Izzy replied.  
"Well how about tomorrow." Erin offered, slightly more eagerly than she had anticipated. Noticing this she covered by adding, "I'm just a bit eager about finding my Digimon." She let out a big sigh of relief hoping that nobody would notice. Davis, however, did notice it. He didn't say anything; he just made a mental note abut it.  
"That would seem like a good idea." Izzy said approving Erin's suggestion.  
"Okay," Tai said, "Is that okay for everyone? Can you all make it tomorrow?" He asked the group. There was a mutual nod from the group indicating that tomorrow was acceptable.  
"Right, my parents are out tomorrow so we can use the computer at my apartment." Tai said. "So shall we say meet at my place at ten 'o clock. That's not to early for anyone?" He added looking again in Davis' direction. Davis chose to ignore this, but nodded along with the rest of the group in agreement with Tai's suggestion. "Okay, so that's settled. Ten 'o clock, my place." He said finishing the discussion. He then added, "That's ten in the morning." Looking once again in Davis' direction. Davis chose to ignore this as well, and made it look to Tai that he was having a conversation with Ken.

The day passed in much the same way as the last day they spent in the park. It also gave Erin a chance to catch up with people she hadn't really spoken to yet like Sora, Izzy and Joe. It also gave Mimi the chance to reacquaint herself with her friends, as the party the previous night was too loud and excited for her to do this then. During the afternoon, Kari and T.K left the group to go for a walk around the park. After they had left and were a safe distance, Tai asked,  
"Where are those too sneaking off to?" Yolei was the first to answer.  
"They said they were just going for a walk. I think they just want some time alone, they haven't really had chance since Friday." She said.  
"Not too alone." Tai said jokingly, and was promptly elbowed in the ribs by Sora. They were gone about an hour and when they came back, nobody made a point of mentioning it, which they were quite glad of, as T.K was once again rearranging his hat. As the afternoon went on, the group started a conversation that soon the whole group were involved in. They started off by talking about nothing in particular, with subjects ranging from the interesting cloud formations to last nights cheesy horror movie. The conversation then moved on to what Gennai wanted to show them and why it sounded so important. This went on for quite some time, and it was starting to get dark by the time they changed the subject. At this point members of the group started leaving. Ken was the first to go, as he had to get the bus back to his apartment. Cody and Yolei left soon after him. Erin was called away again by her pager, when she left this time she had an even angrier look on her face than the last time she was called away. The rest of the group then left to go back to their homes.

The following morning Matt and T.K were the first to arrive at Tai and Kari's. They got there half an hour before they were due to. As they had time to spare Kari and T.K retreated into Kari's room. Tai then thought it was a good idea to try and listen to what they were doing. Matt, however, stopped him from doing this by telling him that they were just enjoying each other's company, and then reminded him of himself and Sora when they first started going out. The fact that Matt had stopped Tai from listening was a good thing, because Sora turned up not long afterwards. She was joined by Mimi and they joined Matt and Tai in the lounge. Ken was the next to turn up and was soon followed by Cody and Yolei. Izzy arrived at the same time as Erin, but this was more by luck than judgement. They joined the growing amount of people in the lounge and had to sit on the floor as all the chairs were taken up. T.K and Kari then emerged from Kari's room with T.K re-arranging his hat, no one mentioned this though as it was becoming quite a usual occurrence, Tai however did look slightly annoyed, but was elbowed by Sora again and he paid no further attention. Joe was next to turn up with five minuets to spare. He said the previous day in the park that the reason for his being late recently was due to his all night study sessions that was making him oversleep. The group were then just waiting for Davis. At exactly 10:00 Davis turned up, much to the annoyance of Tai, as he was trying to hint to Davis to be early in the park. Once the group were all together, they all proceeded into Tai's room where the computer was already set up to allow travel to the Digital World.  
"Who wants the duty?" Tai asked the members of the group with D-3 type digivices. Davis stepped forward with his digivice ready, but before he opened the digi port, he was distracted by Erin's clothes.  
"Hey Carter, what's with a all the leather?" He asked her. She was wearing her leather trousers with a green long sleeve zip up shirt. Over which was a leather armless vest, and on top of all that was an ankle length black and brown leather coat. Her hair was tied back into a long plated ponytail, which was unusual for her as she usually wore it down.  
"It keeps me warm," she answered, "And makes me look menacing." She added with a grin at Davis.  
"Err, Davis we'd like to go to the Digital World some time before tomorrow." Tai said scowling at Davis.  
"What, oh right." Davis replied coming back to his senses. He stepped up to the computer and said,  
"Okay digivices at the ready." He waited for everyone to get their digivices held up to the computer before he shouted,  
"DIGI-PORT OPEN!"

There was a blinding flash of light as everyone in the room was pulled into the computer. The journey through the gate wasn't as any of the digi-destined remembered. This trip was a lot rougher than any they could recall; it also seemed to take a bit longer. When it was over, the group were deposited, as usual, in an untidy heap at the foot of a small television in the middle of a forest. When they had all stood up and brushed them selves off, Tai was the first to speak.  
"This isn't right. I programmed the port to take us to Gennai's house not here." He said looking around at the forest. Izzy pulled out his D-Terminal and started pressing buttons furiously. After several seconds he spoke.  
"We landed two sectors across from Gennai's house, were about two miles away in the forest surrounding his house." He said, not looking up from his D-Terminal.  
"How do you know that?" Cody asked him.  
"I uploaded the map of the Digital World from my laptop into this D-Terminal and set it to read our digivice signals so I can pinpoint where anyone is in the Digital World." He answered.  
"That's cleaver Izzy," Tai said glossing over the mater, "But why are we here and not at Gennai's place?" He asked.  
"I'm not sure, maybe Gennai can answer that. I suggest we make our way there as soon as possible." Izzy said.  
"Okay, everyone up for a walk? Lead the was Izzy." Tai said, and the group moved off in the direction of Gennai's house. The only thing that was said while they walked was a comment about the weather by Davis. He mentioned that there were rather black looking clouds in the sky, this struck him as add as he had only seen nice weather in the Digital World, except in places where there wasn't supposed to be nice weather. The rest of the group paid little attention to this and carried on walking.

They had walked for about fifteen minuets when a number of Digimon appeared around them out of thin air. This took the group by surprise, as it wasn't a normal characteristic of Digimon to suddenly appear like that. When they saw who the Digimon were, however, all surprise left and was replaced by a scene similar to that of Mimi arriving at her party two nights ago. They recognised the Digimon as their partners, and each digi-destined greeted their friend warmly. After a few minuets, the group noticed that an unfamiliar Digimon was among those that had appeared. He was a small cream and green Digimon, about the size of Agumon. He had very long ears and a horn on his forehead. While the others didn't recognise him, Erin on the other hand, did. She walked up to him and crouched down so she was the same height as him.  
"Who are you?" She asked the Digimon.  
"My name's Terriormon," he replied, "Who are you?" He asked in return.  
"I'm Erin." She answered.  
"Then I must be your partner. Gennai said that my partner was called Erin Carter." Terriormon said to Erin.  
"That's me." Erin said. There was than a pause, everyone was watching the pair intently. During this time a very vivid memory flashed through Erin's mind, she remembered the very brief meeting she had with Terriormon before and she had a very strong feeling that this was the same Terriormon and her digivice was beeping madly. Then, with tears in her eyes, she picked Terriormon up and hugged him very tightly.  
"It's good to finally know your name." She told him.

While Erin and Terriormon were getting to know each other, Davis asked the Digimon,  
"So how did you guys get here? Last time I checked none of you could teleport yourselves"  
"It's a new gadget Gennai made," Veemon answered, "He saw that you came out of the wrong port and transported us to you." He continued.  
"Great, then he can transport us back." Tai said grinning broadly.  
"I'm afraid not, it only works one way." Agumon said.  
"Awe man, you mean we've still got to walk all that way." Davis said "I see you haven't changed much." Gatomon said to Davis.  
"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked in return. But before Gatomon had a chance to answer Erin, who now had Terriormon resting on her head, said,  
"Guys, we had better start moving, the weather is turning nasty."

As she said this, a strong wind started blowing through the forest. The group picked their Digimon, Erin took Terriormon off her head, and started running in the direction they were headed in before the Digimon appeared. After a while the came across a clearing in the forest where they stopped to catch their breath.  
"Whoa, you actually wear those." Erin said to Davis noticing he had pulled his goggles over his eyes.  
"Well. Their not called wind goggles for nothing." He replied. The wind was now so strong that they had to shout to be heard over it and everyone, except Davis, was shielding their eyes against the dust and debris that was being blown around by the wind.  
"I really think we should carry on moving." Mimi shouted indicating a rather large tornado forming about half a mile from where they were standing.  
"We'll never out run that." Erin shouted back.  
"What do you suggest we do then?" Davis shouted at Erin.  
"We have to find somewhere to hide and wait for it to pass." Erin replied.  
"Okay where?" Sora shouted, joining in.  
"How about that cave?" Tai suggested. They had been following a rocky mountain range round from the port and there was a cave in the side of the rock a little way from the clearing.  
"That should be okay, providing we get far enough away from the entrance." Erin shouted back. With no further discussion the group headed towards the cave at a run. The tornado was following them at high speed.

As they reached the cave, they carried on running until they rounded a corner and the entrance was no longer in sight.  
"This should be fine." Erin said panting. The rest of the group stopped and braced themselves for what was about to happen, holding onto their Digimon and each other. The wind in the tunnel suddenly picked up. It was very strong and the noise was defining. Suddenly a large crash was heard over the noise of the wind and the wind dropped to almost nothing. The group disengaged from each other.  
"What happened?" Cody asked a little concerned.  
"I'll go check." Tai said, and left to check the entrance. It wasn't long before he came back looking very worried.  
"The entrance is blocked," he said, "That tornado must have dislodged some rocks further from up that mountain and they've covered the entrance." He left a pause before adding. "We're trapped."

To Be Continued... 


	4. Reunion

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 4 - "What was lost: Part 2 -  
Reunion."

"We're what?" Several members of the group shouted in unison. They had all turned to face Tai; he looked very pale and worried.  
"There's no way we can get through, the entrance is completely blocked." He said very quietly. At this point Erin, Izzy and Joe all produced flashlight torches, and Erin went to check on the cave entrance. There was a stunned silence throughout the group. T.K was holding onto Kari as she looked very worried, Sora, meanwhile, was comforting Tai. They had moved to the edge of the cave and had sat down, Sora had her arm around Tai but he just stared with a blank expression at the wall opposite them. Joe came over to them and started to examine Tai. After a short while he exclaimed,  
"Mild shock, he'll be fine in a little bit." This seemed to relax Sora and Kari slightly. Erin then returned.  
"He's right, there's no way we can get trough that way," she said, "Is Tai okay?" She asked Sora after seeing him all pale and staring blankly.  
"He's fine, just a little shocked." Sora answered. There was then a moment's silence after which Davis spoke.  
"There's got to be something we can do to get through." He said.  
"There really isn't, the rocks covering the entrance are far too heavy for us to move." Erin replied.  
"Well what about the Digimon." Davis argued.  
"There's no room for them to digivolve," Izzy said, "and they can't use their attacks as that may bring more rocks down, on us this time." He added.  
"Well we have to do something." Davis continued.  
"Does anybody have any ideas?" Mimi asked.  
"Well far be it from me to take charge on my first day on the job, but I've been in a situation like this before, and Tai's in no fit state to do anything right now." Erin said to the group.

This comment had the effect of rousing Tai from his trance like state. He jumped as if being awoken suddenly, and started looking around erratically. Sora was the only person to notice him wake up, and noticing his disorientation, put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Tai looked up to see everyone gathered around Erin. The group was shocked to hear that she had been in the same situation before, and as such had said nothing since Erin last spoke.  
"When?" Davis asked her timidly. But before she had a chance to answer Tai spoke.  
"Later Davis, do you have a plan?" He asked Erin. All eyes now turned to Tai as no one had seen him wake up.  
"Yes, the only thing we can do. Follow the cave around and try to find another way out." Erin answered Tai.  
"That sounds reasonable." Tai said, standing up. As he did a wave of dizziness passed over him and Sora had to grab hold of him to keep him steady. He smiled at her gratefully and then turned back to Erin.  
"The cave tunnels round in this direction." Erin said indicating a tunnel in the opposite direction of the cave entrance.  
"Okay then, let's find a way out of this cave." Tai said moving off in the direction Erin had indicated, still holding onto Sora. The group followed the pair, with Davis and Erin bringing up the rear.  
"Hey, where did that flashlight come from?" Davis asked Erin, noticing for the first time the torch she had produced as if from nowhere.  
"Ah, that would be from behind my coat, I like to be prepared for all situations. That's also why I like my long coat so much, I can hide things like this behind it." Erin answered.  
"You're not hiding anything else I should know about behind it are you?" He asked.  
"Now that would be telling." She replied with a sly grin at Davis. She then quickened her pace to catch up with the rest of the group.

The group walked silently through the cave tunnels for what seemed to them to be hours. Izzy voiced a theory that the tunnels were artificially made for travel through the mountain. After a while they came across a branch in the tunnel. It split into three separate tunnels.  
"This complicates things." Erin said looking at the three tunnels.  
"We're going to have to split up, Izzy said, "Lucky we have three flashlights." He added. The group then split into three smaller groups. Everyone, that is, apart from Davis. While the other members of the party were discussing which tunnel to go down, Davis had backed towards the wall of the cave and sat down. He was very pale and he was sweating, he kept looking round nervously and was breathing very deeply and quickly. Cody was the first to notice Davis' strange behaviour.  
"Hey Davis, what's up?" He asked.  
"I, err, I don't feel to well. I really need to get out of this cave now." Davis muttered, not looking at anyone in particular. Joe went over to examine him.  
"His pulse is racing." He said after a short while.  
"Has he gone into shock like Tai?" Sora asked "No, this is different," Joe answered, and then turning to Davis he said, "Davis, can you tell us what's wrong"  
"I can't breath," Davis said in the same shaky, quiet tone, "It feels like the cave walls are closing in on me," he added, everyone in the group looked very concerned. "I need to get out of this cave now, I need air." Davis shouted quite suddenly, making everyone jump. Erin then walked over to Davis.  
"He's claustrophobic," she said to the group. "Didn't you guys know?" She asked.  
"He never told us." Yolei said, a bit indignantly, but she still looked as concerned as the rest. Erin crouched down next to Davis and began talking quietly to him. The others couldn't hear what she was saying so just watched. After a while, what she was saying had some effect, he stopped looking round erratically and his breathing had slowed, but was still deep. Erin then stood up and turned to the rest of the group.  
"I'm going to stay here with Davis, the rest of you, split up and head down the tunnels to find a way out." She said taking charge once again.  
"But we only have three flashlights." Ken said, voicing the concern of several of the group.  
"One group will have to take my torch." Erin said.  
"But then you and Davis will be in the dark." Mimi said.  
"Don't worry about us, besides it's better in the dark." Davis made an indistinct noise at this comment, but the rest of the group had the feeling that he disagreed with Erin. "We'll meet back here in fifteen minuets regardless of whether any of you have found another way out. If you haven't then we will have to think of another plan." Erin continued. The rest of the group nodded in agreement and then split into three smaller groups. T.K, Kari and Mimi took the tunnel on the far left, while Cody, Matt, Yolei and Ken took the tunnel in the centre, which left Tai, Sora, Izzy and Joe to take the tunnel on the far right. Erin gave her torch to T.K and Joe gave his to Matt and the three groups left for their tunnels leaving Erin, Davis, Veemon and Terriormon in almost complete darkens. The rest of the Digimon had accompanied their partners down the tunnels.

Erin sat down next to Davis while there was still enough light to see where she was going and picked up Terriormon and put him on her lap. Veemon was standing next to Davis with an extremely worried look in his face. As the light in the cave faded, Davis' breathing became faster again.  
"Davis, you need to stop panicking, that only makes things worse." Erin said gently to him.  
"That's easy for you to say." Davis replies weakly.  
"Well think of it this way, without any light you can't see the walls of the cave." Erin countered. She then removed a small flask from her belt; this was also concealed by her long coat. She handed it to Davis.  
"Here," she said, "Drink this." Davis took the flask from her and started to drink from it. When he finished, he said,  
"Is there anything you don't have behind that coat?" Erin grinned.  
"I told you I like to be prepared." She said. There followed a pause in the conversation. Davis had calmed down a little and his breathing was becoming slower again. Erin grinned inwardly at hearing this. After a while Davis spoke.  
"You now, it just occurred to me that I know hardly anything about you. We've been spending all this time together and you haven't really said anything about yourself"  
"That's because there isn't really anything to know about me." Erin said. Davis considered this for a moment and then said.  
"Humour me, I need something to take my mind off being in here." Erin thought for a minute.  
"Okay, Erin Carter 101," she began, "Well I was born in England, in a city called Canterbury in Kent, which is down the bottom of the country. I lived there until I left my first school at eleven. From there my family moved to London. Then we moved here a few months ago, when my dad got transferred." She broke off; she noticed that Terriormon had fallen asleep on her lap just as she was fidgeting to make herself more comfortable. "You know, my little Terriormon here's really very cuddly." She said giving him a small hug, and changing the subject.  
"You haven't finished telling me about your self." Davis said, paying no attention to her previous comment.  
"Well what do you want to know?" She asked.  
"I don't know, anything, what are you good at in school?" He asked in return.  
"Not a lot. I was hopeless at maths; I kept blowing things up in science. I was quite good at learning new languages though. By the time I was twelve I could speak English, French and German. I can now speak Japanese and Russian as well"  
"That is impressive, five different languages. I can barely speak one." Davis said, Erin chuckled at this remark. The conversation carried on like this for some time, Erin let on very little about herself, just enough to keep Davis quiet. After a while silence fell over the pair and Veemon had joined Terriormon in falling asleep. Abruptly, Davis burst out laughing, which startled Erin, as she wasn't expecting anything like this to happen; however she soon joined him and the pair were laughing hysterically. Once Erin had gained some level of composure she asked,  
"Why are we laughing?" To which Davis replied.  
"I really have no idea." He added, in between gasping for breath, "Maybe something to do with this whole situation. You know, us being stuck in here and me freaking out, what else is there to do?" Once the laughter had subsided, Davis took on a more serious tone, and said,  
"Thanks for staying here with me and keeping me calm and everything"  
"That's not a problem, after everything you've all done for me, especially you, it's the very least I could do." Erin answered in a similar tone. More silence followed.

Not long after, lights began appearing in the tunnels. Erin and Davis quickly woke Terriormon and Veemon, as they would soon have to move.  
"Has it really been fifteen minuets?" Davis asked, breaking the silence as people and Digimon were appearing from the tunnels.  
"Apparently." Was Erin's reply. Once the whole group had reconvened, Erin stood up to face them.  
"Any luck?" She asked. She turned first to T.K's group.  
"Nothing, just tunnel as far as the eye could see." T.K answered. Erin turned next to Cody's group.  
"We may have," Cody said, "There was some light and we could feel a slight breeze." He added.  
"Okay, that sounds promising." Erin said before turning to Tai's group.  
"Same as T.K, nothing, just tunnel." Tai said. Upon hearing Tai's statement, Erin reacted immediately.  
"Right, we have two options. Either we take are chances with this tunnel, or we go back to the entrance and try, somehow, to get through those rocks." She said.  
"Well the only way we're getting through those rocks is if a Digimon blasts their way through, and that will most likely bring the cave down on us, so I say we take are chances with the tunnel." Tai said. The group nodded in agreement. "However," he continued, "If we haven't found anything after half an hour, we come back and we get through those rocks. Regardless." The group once again nodded, but this time more uncertain in their agreement than the last time.  
"You up for a walk?" Erin asked Davis.  
"Yeah, I guess." He answered, getting shakily to his feet. Veemon held on to him uncertainly with a worried look on his face.  
"Thanks pal." He said to Veemon.  
"Not a problem, Davis." Veemon replied. The group then proceeded to walk along the central tunnel.

It took ten minuets for the group to find the light that Cody had mentioned seeing, and it was defiantly daylight. They could also feel the breeze, although it was now like a slow wind. They walked for a further ten minuets before finding the source of the light. Right at the end of the tunnel was a small hole, about the size of Patamon, in the cave wall.  
"Great, we'll never get through that." Matt said looking at the hole.  
"Is there anyway of making it bigger?" Joe asked.  
"Probably not, at least not without bringing the whole of that wall down." Izzy answered.  
"Well what are we going to do now?" Yolei asked "I'm still not too comfortable with the idea of blasting through those rocks, there's still two more tunnels to explore." Cody answered "But we can't even be sure those tunnels go anywhere." Mimi said adding to the debate.  
"Guys can we just decide to do something. Being able to see how small it is in here really isn't helping." Davis said concentrating very hard on the hole in the wall and not on the surroundings of the cave.  
"Okay, we go for the entrance," Tai said, "Is everybody okay with that?" He asked. The group nodded in agreement, some more reluctantly than others.

The group then turned around and moved off in the direction they came from. It was twenty minuets before they reached the branching of the tunnels, and a further fifteen minuets before they reached the cave's entrance again.  
"My old friend, the rock slide." Davis said sarcastically, as they reached the entrance of the cave. Tai then turned to the group.  
"Okay, we're here. We know the Digimon can't digivolve, there's not enough room, so whose attacks are the strongest in rookie form?" He asked. Izzy was the one to answer.  
"According to my Digimon analyser, Agumon and Terriormon's attacks are the strongest in their current forms. Not counting Gatomon, as she's a champion but none of her attacks are really of any use to us right now." He said.  
"Right, looks like we're up, Erin." Tai said turning to face her.  
"Okay then. You up for some action little guy?" She asked Terriormon.  
"We're ready for anything." He said defiantly, looking in Agumon's direction "Absolutely." Agumon added. The wave of energy from the two Digimon swept around the group and lifted their sprits. Most of the group were now grinning confidently, except Davis who was still shaken up from being trapped in the cave.  
"Okay, everyone move back to a safe distance. If anything does go wrong I don't want any more people than is necessary getting hurt." The group didn't question this order as they all knew that Tai wouldn't back down, so everyone, apart from Tai, Erin Agumon and Terriormon, moved further down the cave away from the entrance.

Erin and Tai stood shoulder to shoulder and a little way in front of them stood Terriormon and Agumon in a similar fashion, each in front of their partner. They stood this way, in silence for a little while before Tai said,  
"Ready guys"  
"Ready." The two Digimon said simultaneously. Tai and Erin both looked straight ahead, and then grabbed each other hand for support, before shouting,  
"Go," to their Digimon.  
"BUNNY BLAST." Shouted Terriormon.  
"PEPPER BREATH." Agumon shouted. They each did this several times until all that could be heard was the crashing of rock, and dust obscured all vision. The cave shook violently. The rest of the digi-destined all held on to each other in a large group. Once the dust had cleared, and the shaking had stopped, Tai and Erin looked around and to their surprise the cave hadn't collapsed around them. They were still standing in the same spot with their Digimon standing in front of them, panting slightly. The only difference this time was that daylight was pouring into the cave form the newly excavated cave entrance. The light was so bright, compared to the darkness of the cave, it hurt their eyes but they didn't care. They stared at the opening in the cave for a short while before looking at each other and burst out laughing. They hugged each other as the rest of the group came running up to them. Tai was almost jumped on by Sora, and the pair started kissing passionately. Davis ran straight to Erin, all thoughts of his claustrophobia gone, to see if she was okay. He then hugged her very tightly to the surprised looks of the rest of the group, once he noticed the group looking at him he turned a very deep shade of crimson, but he didn't care he just carried on hugging her until she said,  
"Err, Davis. I'd like to leave the cave now"  
"Oh, right." He said breaking apart from her. The entire group, Digimon included, then ran, en masse, to the cave entrance. They were all laughing and cheering so much that they didn't notice the sky was still as angry as it was before they took refuge in the cave, however the wind had dropped sharply and all other adverse weather conditions had ceased.

They headed straight to Gennai's place from leaving the cave. They continued in the same high sprit all the way there, talking, laughing and cheering. It wasn't until they reached Gennai's place that they're sprits dropped. When they arrived, they found Gennai standing outside waiting for them, wearing a very grim expression. Without any greeting, he led them over to a clearing near his house, which wasn't anywhere near big enough to hold fourteen people and thirteen Digimon. They sat in a circle with Gennai standing near a tree.  
"Greetings my young friends," he said, and before allowing anyone to reply he added, "When you didn't arrive through the pre-determined port, I began to get quite concerned, so I traced the port through which you did emerge and sent your Digimon there. Then, when you didn't arrive after that big storm I became very worried. I am pleased to see you are all alright." He now smiled slightly.  
"Yeah, sorry about that, we had a bit of a cave problem." Tai said to Gennai.  
"Indeed." Gennai replied, nodding his head. There followed a short silence, before the group launched into discussion.

"My reasons for calling you here have now changed," Gennai told the group, "It appears that something or someone has infiltrated the Digital World." He explained.  
"What makes you say that?" Davis asked.  
"Simply the weather. This is very uncharacteristic weather for this part of the Digital World, which means that something is interfering with the flow of data and this is the result"  
"Kind of like the symptoms of a virus in a human." Erin interrupted.  
"Exactly." Gennai replied.  
"So do we know who or what is attacking?" Tai asked.  
"Not as of yet." Gennai answered.  
"Could it be another evil Digimon?" Mimi asked.  
"No, whatever is attacking is foreign to the Digital World and not digital in nature"  
"So, could it be another digi-destined trying to palm then selves off as a Digimon emperor?" Ken asked.  
"No, I have not detected anything that would lead to that conclusion"  
"Well, if it's not a Digimon or digital in nature, then it must be someone from our world who has gained access to the Digital World." Izzy concluded.  
"That is the most likely assumption." Gennai said agreeing with Izzy.  
"But that brings up the question, how did they get access to the Digital World. I thought only digi-destined could get in." Tai said.  
"We can't rule out the possibility that this is another digi-destined, of group of digi-destined." Ken told Tai.  
"This is true, in any case I believe I may have a reason for this breach of the Digital World." Gennai said, he now had the group's undivided attention.

"Four and a half years ago, when you gave up the power of your crests, a shield was placed over the Digital World to prevent occurrences such as this from happening. When you defeated Malomyotismon last year, we thought the threat to the Digital World was over and were able to recover these." The faces of the original eight digi-destined all lit up simultaneously as Gennai removed nine crest tags from his pocket. The group was speechless.  
"This was the main reason I called you here in the first place, to return these to you. And also to meet you new addition and examine her somewhat unique digivice." Gennai told the group. He then handed round the tags to their owners. "You will find that they already contain your crests." He told them as they examined their newly recovered crests. Tai was the first to speak.  
"Hey, who's that last one for?" He asked.  
"There is another crest holder among your group is there not." He said turning to Ken. He handed the last tag to Ken, who looked puzzled by it.  
"What do I do with it?" He asked.  
"You place your crest within it and it allows your Digimon partner to digivolve to his ultimate stage." At this comment the rest of those who had received looked up in Gennai's direction, and as if anticipating their next question said,  
"Yes, your Digimon can now digivolve to their ultimate stages." Silence followed as the eight digi-destined reacquainted them selves with their crests. Gennai spoke again.  
"This also means that the shield covering the Digital World has been lifted, and it looks like it is this that the intruders have used to gain access to he Digital World." More silence followed before Gennai spoke again. "This is all we know at the moment, we also believe it is these intruders that caused you to emerge at the wrong port this morning. However that may have been an effect of what they were doing rather that direct intervention." He told them.  
"What about us, who don't have crests. Can we get to ultimate?" Davis asked Gennai.  
"Unfortunately not, however you can still armour digivolve and utilise DNA digivolving." He answered, then added, "Which reminds me, Gatomon may I borrow you tail ring for a moment?" He asked.  
"Sure." Gatomon answered handing it to him. Gennai took it, studied it for a moment then tapped it twice. It glowed very brightly for a second before returning to normal. He than handed it back to Gatomon.  
"Thanks," she said, "What did you just do to it?" She asked.  
"I have altered it so that it allows you to use your digi egg to armour digivolve while keeping your power as an ultimate." Gatomon didn't reply she just beamed at her new ability.

"Now on to business. Miss. Carter allow me to introduce my self. I am Gennai, friend of the digi-destined." Gennai said bowing to Erin.  
"Hi, I'm Erin Carter, but Carter is fine. Pleased to meet you." She said.  
"I am to understand that you have a different type of digivice than the rest of your group, may I see it please." Gennai asked her.  
"Absolutely." Erin said, removing it from her thigh pocket as before. She handed it to Gennai.  
"This is indeed very different to any model I have seen before." He said. He spent the next five minuets examining it thoroughly. "Impressive, most impressive." He said finally. "It appears that your digivice is even more powerful that your friends who have similar models, D-3s do you call them. Apparently it holds enough power to allow your Digimon to achieve ultimate status without the need of a crest." Erin didn't know what to say so she remained silent. He handed it back to Erin who took it more carefully than she had before hearing of its unique ability. Without saying anymore about Erin's digivice, Gennai turned to the rest of the group.  
"Well that about wraps up what I wanted to see you about. I will keep you apprised of the situation regarding the intruders to the Digital World. Until we find out anymore though I suggest you stay in your own world as it may not be safe here." He told them "That's a good idea." Joe said.  
"Yeah, it might also be a good idea if us older digi-destined left our Digimon here, like we did when the Digimon emperor was in charge." Tai added.  
"Yes, we can place them in strategic locations, they will be able to protect the Digital World and provide us with information about the intruders, should any arise." Gennai said.  
"The rest of us will keep our Digimon with us in case we need to get somewhere fast and dont have time to have to collect our Digimon." T.K said.  
"Precisely." Gennai responded. The older members of the group than said their goodbyes to their Digimon as the rest of the group readied themselves for the walk back to the open port.  
"Before you begin your journey back to the port I must show you something that will make your trip a little quicker." Gennai said as he darted into his house. He emerged a minuet later holding a very odd device. "This is my new invention, it is what I used to get your Digimon to you earlier." He said brandishing the device at them.  
"Cool, that's the teleporter?" Davis asked.  
"Yes it is." Gennai said beaming at the device.  
"What do we have to do?" Yolei asked.  
"Nothing, just stand in a group and this will transport you together." Gennai said.  
"Are you sure it's safe?" Cody asked a little worried.  
"Of course it is. I haven't actually tested it on humans yet, but I'm sure there will be no side effects." This wasn't the response Cody was hoping for but he took his place with the group anyway. Once the group was standing together, Gennai aimed the device at them and said,  
"Stand very still and this won't hurt a bit"  
"Famous last words." Kari said with a little apprehension.  
"See you soon." Gennai said as he pressed a button on the device. A bright light enveloped the group as they began to disappear one at a time.

The sensation, the group felt, was rather odd. It felt as though each of their molecules was being torn form each other, but rather than hurting, it tickled. As the group remateralised near the small television screen they entered from, nearly all of them were in fits of giggles. All except Tai who had the misfortune of having the only side effect of the journey. His left eye kept twitching erratically and there was nothing he could do to stop it.  
"Hey, what's happened to my eye?" He asked, once he had regained full control of his body.  
"I'm sure it will stop soon." Sora said trying her hardest not to laugh too much.  
"Can we leave already?" Tai asked, now rather annoyed.  
"Okay, okay." Kari said also trying not to laugh. She got out her D-3 and held it up to the TV screen, as the others did. Once they all had their digivices pointed at the screen she shouted,  
"Digi-port open." Once again the blinding flash of light engulfed the group of digi-destined and their Digimon and they began their trip back to the real world.

The trip back was a lot less rough than the outgoing journey, however when they arrived back in Tai and Kari's apartment they were still deposited in a large heap at the foot of the computer.  
"Well, at least my eye has stopped twitching." Tai said from somewhere near the bottom of the pile. Once they had disengaged themselves from each other, Davis looked at the clock near the computer.  
"Hey we had better start making our way back, it's getting really late." He said. It had already started getting dark outside.  
"Okay, well than I suggest we meet tomorrow to discuss what to do now." Tai said. The rest of the group agreed.  
"So we say, here at midday." Tai suggested. Again the group nodded in agreement. They then said their good byes, Kari and T.K a little more intimately than the others, and then Kari suggested that she would take the lift down with T.K, as they hadn't had much time alone during the day. T.K agreed with a big grin on his face and they left. Some of them were trying to conceal Digimon, a job made a little easier because Veemon, Hawkmon and Armadillomon had reverted to their smaller In-Training forms.

T.K and Kari took their own lift down to the ground floor, and when the arrived T.K emerged, once again, rearranging his hat. He waved goodbye to Kari as the doors closed and she returned to her apartment.  
"I gotta' ask. What do you two keep doing together that makes you have to keep rearranging that hat of yours?" Davis asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.  
"Nothing." T.K said sheepishly. The group eyed him suspiciously. Yolei then hissed in Davis's ear,  
"Use your imagination." Davis considered this for a moment before turning to Yolei and saying,  
"I'd rather not." At this the group started laughing, and began their trips back to their homes.

To Be Continued... 


	5. Seven Days

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 5 - "Seven days."

As everyone was leaving Tai and Kari's apartment, they were in generally high sprits. Even though the trip to the Digital World hadn't gone quite to plan, they had still survived being trapped in a cave, for who knows how long, and some of them had regained the ability to allow their Digimon to go ultimate. They walked as a group until they reached the bus stop where Ken had to get his bus. They waited as a group for the bus with Ken. When the bus arrived, late as usual, he said goodbye to everyone, kissed Yolei goodnight and left. It was at this point when the group split in two. Sora, Mimi, Joe and Izzy went in one direction, and Matt, T.K, Cody, Yolei, Davis and Erin went in the other direction. They all said good night to each other and left to go their separate ways. On their way back, the larger groups conversation was varied, but ended up on cheesy old horror movies again, and it turned out that Erin was something of an expert on the subject.  
"You would get on really well with Kari. She loves movies like that as well." T.K said to Erin.  
"Really," Erin said, "Well maybe we should get together some time and dig out our favourite scary movies"  
"Cool, make it a party and we'll all come." Davis said adding to the conversation. The conversation carried on like this until they reached T.K's apartment block. Davis and Erin said goodnight to everyone as they made their way into their block leaving Erin and Davis alone. They walked a little way in silence until Davis stopped, Erin didn't immediately notice this and carried on walking until she saw that Davis was no longer with her, she turned round and walked back with a puzzled expression on her face.  
"Davis what's up?" She asked.  
"Nothing really, it's just," he paused while thinking what to say, "When we were in that cave, you really helped. If you weren't there I really don't know what I would have done. Thank you so much." He said finally.  
"It's nothing you know, I would have done it for any of you, and I'm sure that you have done it for me," she said, "Thanks for not strangling me to death when we got that wall down by the way." She added with a grin. Davis then became very sheepish.  
"Oh yeah, sorry about that. I don't know what came over me, I guess that I was just happy to see you alive after all you had done for me in the cave." He said.  
"It's okay, I probably would have done the same thing. I hugged Tai after all"  
"You hugged Tai," Davis said surprised, "Poor you." They both burst out laughing and walked the rest of the way back to their apartments.

Day One - Thursday.

"Metal gear!?!" Exclaimed the TV in Tai's front room. Several members of the group had turned up early at Tai's for the meeting later on in the day. Davis and Erin were playing a video game, and T.K and Kari were sitting next to them on the couch watching. Tai and Sora, meanwhile, were in the kitchen getting some drinks. The reason everyone was inside was because the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was now raining, however the weather report said that it would clear up by the afternoon and go back to being summer. As the morning went on more people turned up. Matt and Mimi were the next to arrive and joined Tai and Sora in the kitchen, who then all moved into the lounge where everyone else was. They all soon started shouting direction at Davis who was playing the game, this confused him a little and he died so he gave to controller to Erin. Everyone continued to shout directions, until Yolei, Ken and Cody arrived. Matt answered the door to let them in. They joined the others in the lounge and started shouting directions as well, it seemed that everyone was an expert at the game. The last to arrive were Joe and Izzy, who joined the others at shouting directions at T.K, who was now playing the game. Everyone was so interested in the game that nobody noticed that the whole group had now arrived. This is until Patamon flew in front of the TV causing T.K to die rather excruciatingly.  
"Didn't you guys want to talk about something," he said to the group, "'cause if you didn't, can we get something to eat. I'm hungry"  
"What, oh yeah." Tai said, finally realising that everyone was present. He turned off the TV and the game console and turned to face the group.

"Okay, now that we're all here, we can discuss what we're going to do about the invasion of the Digital World." He told them.  
"We don't actually know that it's an invasion yet." Joe offered.  
"That's true, but for the time being we have to treat it as an invasion, as that's the most likely cause of what's been happening." Tai told him.  
"Okay, so now we're assuming that, what do we do?" Davis asked.  
"For the moment wait." Tai answered.  
"Gennai said that we can't really do anything until we know for sure what's going on." Matt added.  
"I can keep in contact with the Digimon in the Digital World and report anything they find." Said Izzy.  
"That's a good idea, you can tell us if they see or hear anything that might help us." Mimi said to Izzy.  
"Okay, and you guys," Tai said turning to the younger digi-destined, "You have to be ready to go into the Digital World at a moments notice, if the Digimon find anything they need help with, you'll be that help"  
"That's cool, so long as we don't have to wake up at midnight or anything stupid like that." Davis said. Yolei scowled at him.  
"What, I'm not a morning person," Davis said to Yolei, noticing her expression. "Is anyone?" He asked the group. There was a subdued shaking of heads coming from everyone except Kari and Sora much to the displeasure of T.K and Tai.  
"Guys we're getting off topic," Tai said, getting back to the subject at hand, "We have to remain on our guard, all of us, until we know what's going on in the Digital World. I also think that it would be a good idea if you seven stay together as much as possible, in case you do have to go into the Digital World quickly." He suggested to the younger digi-destined. T.K and Kari looked a little annoyed at this suggestion but agreed to it none the less.  
"Okay, so now that's decided what do we actually know about the attackers?" Ken said, "If that's what they are." He added, looking in Joe's direction.  
"Not a lot. We know they control the digi ports for a start." Tai said.  
"How do we know that?" Mimi asked.  
"Because we came out of the wrong one yesterday." Cody answered, Mimi nodded suddenly remembering.  
"We also know that they can control the weather in the Digital World. That tornado." He said, reading the puzzled expressions coming off several members of the group. "I know that Gennai said that it may have been a by product, maybe the clouds were they didn't disappear, but that tornado was manufactured, I'm sure of it. It practically forced us into that cave"  
"And then the entrance collapsed." Kari said, understanding her brother's line of reasoning. "What else do we know?" Davis asked.  
"That's about it for now, we will find out more as and when the Digimon find anything. Izzy can notify us the minuet he finds anything put by D-Terminal, but in the mean time we just have to stay alert and keep our guard up," Tai said finishing the meeting, "Now it's my turn." He added turning the TV and games console on again. Everyone gathered round the TV in their previous positions and resumed shouting directions and instructions. They had all completely failed to notice that it had stopped raining outside and the sun was now shining again.

Day Two - Friday.

In the Digital World, Agumon was walking through one of the many forests that were spotted round File Island. The digi-destined had decided not to digivolve their Digimon, like they did when they were protecting the Digital World from the Digimon Emperor, mainly because they didn't know what they were looking for and they didn't know if fighting would be necessary. Agumon had been walking for some time when he suddenly had the feeling that he was being followed. He stopped, and looked behind him and saw nothing but trees. He continued walking; however he couldn't shake the feeling that someone or something was following him. He walked for a further ten minuets before coming to a clearing in the trees. He sat down on a rock near the centre of the clearing and looked upwards at the sky. The sky was covered with angry grey and green clouds that looked as of they could have spat out another tornado on the spot.

"I miss the sun." Agumon thought to himself, as he watched the clouds change formation as the wind blew them. He amused himself for quite some time by trying to make recognisable shapes out of the cloud formations, as he and Tai had once done. "That one looks a bit like Patamon." He thought, as he chuckled quietly to himself. Suddenly something happened that snapped him out of his daydreaming. He heard something snap in the woods behind him as if someone has stood on a small branch on the forest floor. He stood up quickly and looked round at once, but he saw nothing except the forest. He returned to face the way he was to start with, but then looked behind himself again quickly. There was something different. A tree had appeared in the centre of the path he had walked down. He walked towards the tree whilst thinking to himself, "That's strange, I don't remember that tree being there before." As he examined the tree he found it to be no different that any of the other trees that made up the forest. He resigned to the fact that his imagination was playing tricks on him and turned back to continue through the forest. Before he re-entered the forest at the other side of the clearing, though, he looked back at the tree again and found it had disappeared. "That's really strange." He thought, panicking a little. "I had better tell Tai and the others, they wanted to know about anything strange that happened." He thought, and with that changed direction and began walking to the nearest digi port to contact Izzy. As he walked, the feeling that he was being followed had returned, and he quickened his pace to the port.

"And then it was gone." Agumon told Izzy through the open digi port. He was sat on the ground in front of the small television that served as an entry and exit point to the Digital World. He seemed a little more relaxed now he was talking to Izzy.  
"So you mean the tree just disappeared?" Izzy asked Agumon from the other side of the port, or inside the TV from Agumon's point of view.  
"Yeah, I didn't think I could remember the tree being there in the first place, but when I examined it, it was normal like any other tree. But then when I looked back at it as I was leaving it vanished and the feeling that I was being followed came back." Agumon answered, and then asked, "What do you think it could be"  
"I'm not sure, but you did the right thing telling us. We can try and find out what it was, and if it has anything to do what what's attacking the Digital World now." Izzy told Agumon.  
"Thanks Izzy, I know you will do all that you can to get the Digital World back to normal again." Agumon said.  
"That's okay Agumon, and if you see anything like this again tell us straight away, okay." Izzy said to Agumon.  
"I will, speak to you soon." Agumon said as the digi port closed and Izzy vanished from the screen. Back in the real world, Izzy reached for his D-Terminal and started to relay the message from Agumon back to the other digi-destined.

Day Three - Saturday.

The day was once again sunny and hot after Thursday's rainstorm, and the amount of people out and about was large even for a Saturday afternoon. Erin walked back to her apartment from the beach where she had spent most of the day with Yolei and Mimi. As she walked she was thinking about everything that had happened to her in the last week. She had found out that she was a member of the digi-destined, but this hadn't come as too much of a shock to her. She had made eleven new friends and one new very good friend, Davis. She had travelled to a completely different world, perhaps a different universe, and had met maybe the best of her new friends Terriormon. While in this new world, she had been chased by a tornado into a cave and trapped inside for the best part of a day. She had now found out that trees were suddenly appearing and disappearing at random in the Digital World. It was as she was thinking about the strange behaviour of the trees that her pager went off for the first time in three days. She removed it from her pocket and looked at the message apprehensively. It said simply,  
4-5-2, meet in the park. Johns.  
It was the same message that she had received the last several time her pager went off. She changed direction, and headed towards the park. All the thoughts of her new friends, and even the disappearing trees, had been replaced by feelings of increased anger. When she arrived in the park, she looked around briefly for any sign of Johns, after a minuet of searching she found a man dressed in a black suit sitting on a bench under a large tree. She walked over to him and leaned over the back of the bench to talk to him.

"What do you want now?" She asked quietly, but there were still great amounts of anger in her voice.  
"I have come for you progress report." Johns replied calmly.  
"What report, I told you the last three times you called me out I don't work for you anymore"  
"MI6 is pleased with your work so far." He told her, disregarding her last statement.  
"That's good to know, but it's quite irrelevant seeing as I no longer work for MI6." Johns turned to face Erin, he was a young man and looked to Erin to be about twenty, she never got to find out his real age.  
"You may like to think that you no longer work for us," he said with a grin, "But we have been following your every movement in and out of the Digital World. You have no choice but to work for us." He said, turning to face the other way again. Erin looked a little shocked at hearing this, but then she grinned herself.  
"Is that so, well now I know that I can put some of my training to good use." She said this putting influence on the word good. "Are you forgetting that you yourself trained us to recognise and avoid all types of tracking." Johns made no movement, although he was obviously deep in thought.  
"Very well, if you really want to stop working for us then so be it. Maybe we can make a deal." He said turning to face Erin again.  
"Go on." She said.  
"Okay, you want to be left alone. You want us to stop following you, then you leave us alone as well. You let us continue doing what we're doing in the Digital World and don't try to stop us." Erin was silent for a moment, before she said calmly,  
"That's your deal. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone. I'm afraid I can't do that, at least until you have completely withdrawn from the Digital World. In the time I have spent with these digi-destined I have heard what they have done to keep the Digital World safe, and if you think I am going to let you destroy everything they have worked to accomplish, you are gravely mistaken." There was silence between the two for several seconds during which time, Erin had stood up from leaning on the back of Johns' bench.  
"If that is the way you want it to be, but you should be warned you can now consider yourself to be an enemy of MI6 and will be treated as such." Johns said now matching Erin's anger.  
"No you should be warned, we will not stop until you have been remover from the Digital World completely and made sure you cannot return." And with that she turned and headed out of the park without a backwards look at Johns. Little did she know that Davis had witnessed most of the meeting between herself and the man in the black suit.

Day Four - Sunday.

Sunday. Like Saturday, was a quiet day in terms of action from the Digital World. Nothing more had been heard of anything unusual since Agumon's report about the disappearing tree. The only bit of news was that the sky had still not cleared of clouds, although the other Digimon had also said that they too had felt like something was following them everywhere. The digi-destined were getting nervous now, as nothing had been found that could help them identify the intruders into the Digital World. The Digimon were also becoming worried about what was happening to their home. All this was to change though, late Sunday afternoon the digi-destined all got a message saying they should meet at Izzy's apartment as he had some more news. It was half an hour after they received the message that the group was assembled at Izzy's place.

"Thank you all for coming at such short notice," Izzy said to the group, once they had all congregated in his large bedroom. "A short while ago I received a message from Gomamon. It appears that a number of usually benign Digimon were acting very strangely." He told the group.  
"Strange like how?" Davis asked.  
"Acting violent towards other Digimon, and generally behaving out of character for those Digimon." Izzy answered.  
"Could it have been a dark ring or something?" Matt asked.  
"Gabumon didn't say anything about seeing a dark ring or spiral on any of the odd Digimon." Izzy answered.  
"How about the control spires?" Mimi asked.  
"No, those were all destroyed, there's no way it could have been one of those." Ken answered instead of Izzy.  
"Have any of the other Digimon reported seeing any strangely behaving Digimon?" Tai asked.  
"No, the only other report of anything out of the ordinary was from Agumon on Friday about the tree." Izzy said. With all the questions exhausted, the digi-destined sat in silence for a moment.  
"The plot thickens." Matt said, breaking the silence.  
"Indeed it does," Izzy said, "I have told all of the other Digimon to keep a look out for any Digimon behaving in a strange way and to tell us immediately if they do." He added.  
"But until we hear anything else, we will have to keep doing what we're doing. Wait." Tai said.  
"I don't like all this waiting, it makes me nervous." Gatomon said.  
"None of us do, but that's the only thing we can do for the moment." Kari said, trying to reassure her Digimon friend.

Throughout the meeting, Davis had looked very distracted, and apart from his question at the start had said nothing. This was most unlike Davis, and Yolei had picked up on it.  
"Hey Davis, you okay? You're a little more quiet than usual." She asked Davis.  
"Huh? What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine," he said, as if someone had just woken him up. "I've just got something on my mind." He added.  
"Well you need to keep a clear head Davis, if we need you to go into the Digital World we can't have you being distracted by anything." Tai told him.  
"Your right, I think I'm just tired." Davis replied, "I going to go home now." He said standing up and picking up Demiveemon. He said good-bye to everyone and left.  
"That was weird, I wonder what's bugging Davis?" Cody asked.  
"Maybe he's just tired." T.K said, then shrugged when everyone turned a looked at him. With that everyone else started leaving as well, mulling over the new piece to the puzzle in their heads.

Day Five - Monday.

Monday wasn't anywhere near as quiet as the previous two days had been. Almost as soon as everyone had woken up, they had received a message on their D-Terminals telling them to go to Tai's house immediately. It took slightly longer for everyone to assemble than it did yesterday, as everyone was still half asleep. It became evident to Kari and Sora, the only two real morning people, that almost the whole group really weren't morning people at all. Most of the group were very subdued or in very bad moods. It was strange for Kari to see T.K like this. She was used to seeing him full of energy and seeing him so subdued was quite unusual. While they were waiting for everyone to arrive, Kari had pulled T.K into her bedroom, leaving the other members of the group in the lounge.  
"There they go again." Tai said drinking a very large cup of coffee.  
"Leave them alone." Mimi said, stifling a yawn and pouring herself a refill from the coffee pot on the lounge table.  
"I wonder what was so urgent?" Sora asked, not sounding nearly as tired as the other members of the group in the room, in fact Erin had curled up on one of the arm-chairs and had gone back to sleep "I don't know, but it better be worth it getting us out at this time in the morning." Matt said. He was one of the bad tempered morning people. "You had better refill the coffee pot." Yolei said, emptying the last of the coffee into her cup. She was also one of the bad tempered morning people, but she was hiding it this morning by concentrating on the caffeine. As Tai went into the kitchen to refill the coffee pot, the doorbell rang. He answered it on the way to the kitchen and found Izzy on the other side of the door.

"You don't have time for that, we have to get into the Digital World immediately." Izzy said as he made his way into the lounge.  
"Morning to you, to." Tai said to himself as he closed the door and made his way to the kitchen. On his way back from the kitchen he found Izzy had already set up his laptop.  
"So what's the big rush?" Matt asked, "And where is the rest of the coffee?" He added.  
"On it's way." Tai answered first. Izzy, meanwhile, was feverishly typing away at his laptop keyboard.  
"It's urgent, very urgent. Where are Davis, Kari and T.K?" He asked taking his first look around the room.  
"Kari and T.K are, umm, busy at the moment, and Davis hasn't turned up yet." Sora answered.  
"Trust Davis to be late." Izzy said, it seamed to Sora that Izzy also fell under the category of bad tempered morning person, however she put this morning down to the urgency of what ever was happening. Davis finally turned up five minuets later, after the second coffee pot had been emptied. T.K and Kari had also emerged, this time Kari was rearranging T.K's hat on his head, and T.K looked a lot more awake. The rest of the group looked at the pair for a second before turning back to Izzy, who was finishing his second cup of coffee.  
"Okay, so now we're all here, what the urgent urgency?" Tai asked.  
"I received a message from Tentomon late last night, he was being attacked by a group of Koromon." Izzy told the group "Koromon? But their In-Training Digimon, why would they attack Tentomon?" Joe asked.  
"I'm not sure, but it's like what Gomamon was saying yesterday. Anyway, Tentomon said he had the situation under control, but I think we should go just in case." Izzy said.  
"Okay, I say this qualifies as an emergency. We go into the Digital World, where was Tentomon?" Tai asked.  
"I already have the port dialled up." Izzy said.  
"Okay into my room, in case anyone come home while we're away." Tai said leading everyone into his room.

"Tai, get your foot off my head!" Sora shouted as the group untangled themselves from the heap they had arrived in. They had come out of the wrong port again.  
"How far out are we this time?" Tai asked Izzy.  
"About half a mile. In this direction." Izzy answered, leading the group off in the direction he had indicated. After half an hour they came across Tentomon. Izzy ran straight up to him.  
"Tentomon, are you alright?" He asked the Digimon.  
"I'm fine, the Koromon weren't a problem, that's if they were Koromon." Tentomon said.  
"What do you mean?" Cody asked.  
"Well when I attacked them back, they just vanished. Like the control spire Digimon did when they were defeated"  
"Well they can't be real Digimon then." Matt reasoned, he was a little more agreeable now he had had coffee.  
"That would be the most logical assumption." Izzy said.  
"So what do we do now?" Joe asked.  
"Well it looks like there's nothing more here we can do, and if there are any more attacks, it doesn't look like we will be needed if they all go down that easy." Tai said, "I suggest we go back and try to find out what these things are, I'm quite sure they are related to Agumon's tree in some way." He continued. The rest of the group agreed and with one final check to see if Tentomon was okay, they returned back to the port and the real world.

Day Six - Tuesday.

Tuesday was quiet once again. This gave the digi-destined time to try and figure out what it was that had attacked Tentomon, what Gomamon had seen and if the tree Agumon saw was one of them. Most of the group spent the day at Izzy's looking through books and searching the Internet for clues as to what they might have been. Everyone was in a generally better mood that yesterday, mainly for the reason they had all got to wake up properly before starting digi-destined work. The group worked the computer in pares, one person would find the information on the Internet, the other would write down the important information. Izzy and Tai were first; they stayed there until lunchtime when Yolei and Ken took over. During this time the others looked through many books on different types of computer program, anything that might give them some idea as to what was attacking the Digital World. They group had come to the conclusion that it was definitely an invasion of the Digital World or a take over attempt. About mid afternoon Erin took the computer with Mimi as her partner.  
"This is what Newbie found so far." Erin told Mimi, indicating a page of writing, "him and Yolei were looking up different types of virus program, and I think he may be on to something." She said, and then started typing away at the keyboard. They remained there for the rest of the day.

It was about the time that Erin took the computer that Davis and T.K disappeared from the group. They had told the others they were going out for pizza and left the apartment.  
"So what did you want to talk to me about?" T.K asked Davis.  
"It's about Erin. I'm not entirely sure she is who she says she is." He replied.  
"What's with all the James Bond all of a sudden?" T.K asked a little sarcastically.  
"There are lots of things, for a start what has she actually told us about her self, her past." Davis said. T.K looked interested but said nothing.  
"Also she keeps getting called away by her pager, what that all about?" He asked rhetorically.  
"Then she was really eager to get into the Digital World last week." "But she had an excuse for that, she wanted to find Terriormon." T.K said "True, but it was the way she suggested going tomorrow so suddenly, and then covering by saying she wanted to look for Terriormon." Davis said. "And then the day before yesterday I stumbled across her in the park talking to some guy in a black suit." He continued.  
"So what, it was probably her dad." T.K reasoned.  
"Oh no, this was no family conversation, they were both very angry, so I stayed to listen to the conversation." Davis said.  
"What were they saying?" T.K asked.  
"I'm not too sure, they were speaking in English, but from what I could understand they were definitely talking about the Digital World. I heard them mention something called MI6 and they were doing something in the Digital World." Davis answered.  
"What are you trying to say?" T.K asked.  
"I think Erin might be one of the people trying to take over the Digital World, and if she isn't she knows more than she is letting on." T.K was stunned by this turn of events, and after several seconds of silence he spoke.  
"Do you think we should tell the others?" He asked.  
"Not yet, I'm going to try and find out some more, like what MI6 is and what Erin's doing talking to someone from there before I say anything to the others." Davis answered.  
"Okay, that seems fair enough. I won't tell anyone either. I will, however, keep an eye on Erin and if she does anything out of the ordinary we should confront her." T.K suggested.  
"Agreed," Davis said. "Come on we better hurry up, the others will be wondering where we got to." He added as they returned with the pizza.

Day Seven - Wednesday.

Wednesday was like most of the previous week, quiet. There was a report, this time from Gabumon, of Digimon behaving badly, but this was nothing for them to get too alarmed over. The digi-destined once again started work on trying to find out what was attacking. They had made some progress in finding some types of virus program that had some of properties of the strange Digimon, but nothing conclusive. They started the day early, again at Izzy house, with a discussion about what they had found so far, over several large ports of coffee.  
"Here is something I found when I got home last night," Erin was saying. "I remember reading somewhere once about a type of Trojan Horse virus, called a sentinel program, that can disguise it's self as any piece of data in it's near vicinity. A bit like a digital stem cell." When she said this she lost most of the group.  
"A digital what?" Sora asked.  
"Stem cell. It's a cell in the body that can transform itself to become any other type of cell it's near to. They are mostly found in foetuses and it's believed that stem cell research can make great advances in the treatment of diseases like leukaemia." Joe explained.  
"Thank god there's a doctor in the house." Matt said.  
"Anyway, these viruses are programmed to collect data from the computer that has been infected by it, but they can be reprogrammed for more destructive purposes. They are virtually undetectable as they can make them selves' look like anything else. They are sent in, in large numbers and are programmed to self-destruct if they are found, as there will be several others to take its place. I believe that what Agumon saw was one of the benign ones, and the Koromon and the other ones that attacked are the more virulent." She finished and looked around the group, everybody was staring at her; she had their undivided attention. Izzy was the next to speak,  
"That's an interesting theory, it would certainly explain everything." He said.  
"What did you call them again?" Ken asked.  
"Sentinel programs, primarily designed for data gathering and research." Erin answered. Izzy already had his head in a book.  
"She's right," he said, emerging from 'The Big Book of Virus Programs'. "It says here that sentinels are used mainly by governments to keep track of convicted criminals and are used in bank computer security systems. It also says that not all governments could afford the research for such programs and are very rare." He added closing the book.  
"So who could afford the research for programs like this?" T.K asked.  
"Well America without a doubt, the UK maybe. Russia if they collaborated with another country, Japan. Any of the rich countries." Ken answered.  
"So we're fighting a government, that sure does complicate things." Cody said.  
"Okay so now we know what we're fighting, we need to know who we're fighting. We need to get on the Internet find out which countries can afford this type of research, and which ones already have the programs running." Izzy said, and with that the group set to work.

When T.K and Davis heard Erin's explanation of the sentinels, they looked at each other surreptitiously, each knowing what this meant. And when Ken said the UK government could afford research for this kind of thing, it made the decision for them. T.K went over to Davis while the others were crowded round Izzy's computer.  
"I found out what MI6 is." T.K said.  
"What is it?" Davis asked.  
"It's a department of the British government, their foreign secret intelligence agency." T.K answered.  
"You mean Erin's a real James bond, cool." Davis said, forgetting about the subject at hand.  
"It means you were right, she most likely is working for whoever is attacking." T.K said very seriously.  
"When do we confront her?" Davis asked.  
"Later." Was all T.K said.

To Be Continued... 


	6. Liars, guns and money

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 6 - "Liars, guns and money."

"Right, according to this there are several countries that can afford to undertake the Sentinel virus research." Izzy said, as he looked up from his computer screen. It turned out that finding information about who had this new technology was proving to be more difficult than finding information about the technology itself.  
"What else does it say?" Tai asked, as he rubbed his eyes. Everybody in the room was becoming tired as the group had been searching for information all day.  
"Not a lot, it just lists the countries that can afford to do the research." Izzy answered.  
"Well at least that's a start," Matt added, "At least now we know what countries to search." He added.  
"True, but it's not like I can just hack into the government of each countries mainframe to see if they have done the research. Some of these countries may not even have a mainframe." Izzy said, a little irritated. The group was silent for a moment before Erin spoke.  
"Err, allow me." She said, moving towards the computer. Izzy raised his eyebrows at her, but moved from the seat that he was sitting on to allow Erin access to the computer.  
"Be my guest." He said, gesturing at the seat.  
"Thank you. This may take a while, so I suggest you go and get your selves a coffee or something." She said as she started typing at the computer.  
"I don't drink coffee." T.K said, trying to make a joke.  
"Well watch the TV or something then." Erin said, paying no attention to T.K's attempt at humour. With this the group started moving towards the lounge room. T.K's joke was actually a bad cover for him not wanting to leave Erin alone, and both him and Davis were hesitant to leave.  
"Are you sure you don't need a hand?" Davis asked.  
"No, I'm fine." Erin answered, not looking up from the screen. With nothing else they could do, Davis and T.K reluctantly left to join the others.

Half an hour had passed and there was no word from Erin. The group had continued the research in the lounge, and were looking through several large textbooks. There was several coffee cups strewn across the table and a pizza box, which had only crusts left in it. The majority of the Digimon were asleep in one corner of the room, only Patamon and Terriormon were awake and they were talking to each other in another corner of the room.  
"Do you think someone should go in there and check up on Erin, make sure she's okay?" Davis asked, looking at his watch.  
"Davis, that's the third time you've asked that. It's only been half an hour. Are you afraid she's going to blow up the computer or something?" Kari asked, everyone was getting a little irritated with Davis' persistent questioning about Erin.  
"No it's not that, it's just..." But before he could finish the rest of the sentence, Erin emerged from the room, as if on cue, holding a piece of paper. This interruption came as something of a relief for Davis, as he didn't have a clue how he was going to finish that sentence.  
"Okay, of the countries that can afford the research, only fourteen have started. The USA, Russia and Japan have almost finished and are nearly ready to start implementing the program. The UK is the only country, so far, to have completed the research and already have the programs running." Erin said reading from the paper in her hand.  
"How did you find that out?" Izzy asked, but Erin ignored the question and carried on speaking.  
"As Izzy said, it is being used by the government to keep track of convicted computer criminals who's probation has passed, but it's also being used by the security services to spy on other countries." She finished, passing the paper to Tai for him to read.  
"But how did you find all that out so quickly, and more importantly how did you find out about what it's being used for?" Izzy asked again, "I would imagine that sort of information is highly classified." He added.  
"It is, it's just, I have..." Erin said leaving a pause while she tried to finish the sentence. "The less said about that the better." She finished abruptly. T.K and Davis both looked at each other once again, they had a good idea where she had got the information.  
"I hope you saved me some pizza." Erin said, changing the subject, seeing the pizza box on the table. The remaining members of the group looked very guilty.  
"I think there's some in the kitchen." Sora said, hiding herself from Erin's line of sight. Mimi emerged from the kitchen soon after carrying another pizza box, which she opened at the coffee table; thankfully it still had half a pizza left. Most of the group let out a large sigh of relief when they saw this. Erin took a piece and sat down on the sofa next to Davis.

"This is incredible." Tai said after he finished reading the paper Erin had handed him. "This pretty much settles it, we're fighting the British government. Either that or some really good computer hacker." He joked.  
"My moneys on the government." Matt said.  
"I don't know, there are some really good hackers out there." Izzy said. Everyone stopped doing what they were doing and turned to look at Izzy. "I would imagine." He added reading everyone's expression, he then became very interested the slice of pizza he was eating.  
"Well for the time being lets assume it's the government." Tai said jokingly, looking in Izzy's direction. "We know they're using these sentinel programs right, so how long would it take for them to take over the whole world." Tai asked.  
"They may already have." Izzy said, now becoming interested in the conversation again.  
"Not necessarily," Erin said. "It's more likely that they are using the sentinels to gain a foot hold before they send in the troops, so to speak." She added.  
"So you think they are going to send humans in as well as these virus thingies?" Mimi asked.  
"That's more than likely." Erin replied. T.K and Davis were now becoming worried. Davis indicated to T.K that he wanted to speak to him. They told the others they were going to get some more coffee and disappeared into the kitchen.  
"Why is she telling us all this?" Davis asked T.K.  
"I'm not too sure, maybe she trying to set a trap for us." T.K reasoned.  
"Whatever she's doing we've got to confront her soon, before she has a chance to get any of us hurt." Davis said "Agreed." T.K replied, and with that they took the now refilled coffee pot and returned to the lounge room.

"That was quick." Yolei said, as they entered the lounge.  
"There was only instant left." Davis remarked. The pair then rejoined the group who were now discussing the best way to go about fighting the intruders, who they had now guessed were the British government.  
"Isn't it a bit unwise to openly engage the government of another country?" Cody asked.  
"Well under the usual circumstances it would be. But this is anything but usual." Izzy answered.  
"He's right," Joe added. "They're invading the Digital World, a place not too many people know about. If they were to make the conflict between themselves and anyone apposed to them public, then they would also have to reveal information about the Digital World, which I'm quite sure they don't want to do." He said.  
"I'm guessing that only a small number of people know about this incursion," Ken said, adding to the conversation. "If it is the British government then their secret service will be doing all the foot work, which means that they know and also the prime minister will know about it. In fact it's likely that only a small division of MI6, I think it's called, will know." He added.  
"How did you guess all that?" Sora asked.  
"Don't you people watch Stargate SG-1?" He asked the group, there was a unanimous shaking of heads coming from the rest of the group.  
"Off topic people," Tai said, getting the attention of the group. "What we really need to know is how they know about the Digital World, last time I checked only digi-destined could keep memories of it for any length of time." He asked the group.  
"They must be using digi-destined from England then." Izzy hypothesized. T.K thought to himself that the rest of the group would be able to piece together enough of the evidence that led to the conclusion that Erin was with MI6, but no one even mentioned it. The same thought was going through Davis' mind; he glanced at T.K briefly and saw the same look of concern on his face.  
"It would also be good to know how long they have known about it." Kari said, joining the conversation.  
"About three years." Erin said off hand, everyone's eyes suddenly turned to her, as they had done Izzy. Davis could now see several members of the group making the connection he and T.K had done, especially Yolei, who was quick to make judgements anyway. However, still nobody voiced their concerns and just waited for Erin's explanation. Erin thought quickly.  
"While I was on the computer earlier," she paused, "I came across a directive addressed to an MI6 officer named only as the DWC commanding officer. It said that the sentinels were almost ready and to prepare for their insertion. I guessed that the DWC is the Digital World command; it was dated three years ago." She said. The other members of the group were still looking at her but some looked as if they bought her story. Others, T.K noticed, did not look as if they believed her. But before anyone could say anything else, Izzy received a message that one of the Digimon in the Digital World wanted to speak to the group.

Once all of the digi-destined were in Izzy's room once more, Izzy opened the digi port for communication and found Biyomon on the other end.  
"Hey Biyomon, how are you?" Sora asked, pleased to see her Digimon safe.  
"I'm fine Sora, but that's not what I called about." The small bird like Digimon said from the other side of the port.  
"What is it?" Tai asked.  
"I have just seen a group of humans in the Digital World." She answered.  
"They were probably just other digi-destined." Joe reasoned.  
"No, these were in a small group, they looked like the army or something, and they were carrying weapons." Biyomon said, full of alarm.  
"Weapons!" Matt said "Yes." Biyomon agreed.  
"How old did they look?" Izzy asked.  
"That's the really strange thing," Biyomon said, "They looked about Kari's age." She answered.  
"They were kids!" Tai said, and then to himself he said, "Well of course they were kids, only kids can go to the Digital World"  
"Yeah, and that's not all. I have heard that groups like this have been spotted around for the last week and a half." Izzy was now writing madly on his pad that held all his notes pertaining to the Digital World invasion.  
"Did they have any markings in any of their clothes or anything." Ken asked.  
"Well they each had one of those strange blue D-3s like Erin's attached to their shoulders and one of them dropped this." Biyomon held up what looked to be an identification patch.  
"DWC." Erin said.  
Almost everyone, T.K and Davis noticed, had now come to the same conclusion about Erin, after hearing about the blue D-3 and her recognition of the identification patch.  
"Thanks Biyomon." Sora said, she then added, "Keep an eye on them for us"  
"Okay, I will. Speak to you soon." Biyomon said as the port closed.

"It is this MI6 then." Tai said.  
"Evidently so." Matt said.  
"So they have already sent in the troops." Izzy added.  
"This is all happening too fast." Erin said. The group was silent. All eyes tuned, once again, to Erin. T.K and Davis exchanged a brief look at each other. It appeared that the whole group had now come to the same conclusion.  
"Who are you?" Tai asked, breaking the silence.  
"Excuse me?" Erin asked in reply, but before Tai could answer, Davis jumped in.  
"How do you know all of this? How could you possibly recognise that sign as being MI6? Who are you?" He reiterated Tai's question. "DWC? It was written on the patch." Erin answered; it was now her turn to try a humours response. However, she realised that most, if not all, of the group had now pieced enough clues together to work out what she was by themselves. There was silence once again in the room. She looked around the room and saw the same expression in everybody's faces.  
"You are not going to like what I have to say." Erin said finally, breaking the silence. "Two years ago I was approached by someone at school. He said he had a job for me, said I fitted a profile. He gave me a card with a number on to phone, which I did. I found out it was MI6, for a special project and that kids were being recruited for it, they didn't say why at the time. This turned out to be the DWC." She said explaining. Everyone was still silent so she carried on. "It turned out that this project was so secret that not even the whole of MI6 knew about it. So I went to work for them, they didn't let us know what they doing, why they were doing it, or even why they were recruiting children for it. All we knew was that it was important, to them anyway. At the time, I thought the profile I fitted was my ear for languages; it didn't even occur to me that it might be because of this strange device that had come out of my computer. Anyway, they trained us for different jobs. Some were going to be field agents, I was research and development." She continued. She looked once again at the group some looked interested at what she was saying, some looked angry, and others looked indifferent.  
"You lied to us." Yolei said.  
"Actually I didn't. Almost everything I told you in the past was the truth. About my digivice, my going to the Digital World only the once, that was all the truth. I just neglected to mention about my previous employment." Erin replied.  
"Well that's just as bad." Yolei said back. Ken put his hand on her arm to try and calm her; it had partial success in that Yolei said nothing more.  
"Well inquiring minds want to know, what exactly it is that you did for them that you had to keep from us"  
"As I said I was R and D, so I had no access to any of the real information at the time. They just told me what they wanted doing and my team did it. The weapons the others were carrying for example, we were responsible for them." She answered.  
"You were what?" Matt shouted.  
"It's not something I'm proud of, in fact before we go any further I think you should know I no longer work for them." Erin shouted back.  
"And how are we supposed to believe that now." Yolei shouted.  
"I told you, you wouldn't like what I had to say." Erin shouted to Yolei ignoring her question.  
"We don't." Yolei said back, lowering her voice.  
"Well I believe her," Cody said, everyone turned to look at him. "I was wrong about Ken, and although I don't agree with what Erin has done I still trust her." He said.  
"Were you ever planning to tell us?" Sora asked.  
"Yes once they had been removed from the Digital World." Erin answered.  
"Who was that guy I saw you talking with the other day in the park?" Davis asked.  
"That was my MI6 handler, Daniel Johns. The guy I reported to." Erin answered, but before she could explain about the meeting, Yolei started shouting again.  
"Another lie. You just told us you don't work for them any more." She said.  
"If you would let me finish." Erin shouted back.  
"I get this all the time." Izzy told Erin, trying to break the hostile atmosphere but no one paid the comment any attention.  
"Johns has been trying to get me to work for them against you ever since I met you. The guy just wont take a hint." She said. Yolei calmed down a little after hearing Erin's explanation.  
"Listen," Erin said, after a moment's silence, "The last thing I want to do is fracture your group, and if you want me to leave then I will, willingly. But at the moment I am useful to you, I know things about MI6 that can help you fight them. You don't have to trust me just listen." She said.  
"Start talking." Matt said.  
"First thing you have to realise is those weapons are extremely dangerous, especially to Digimon. They are small EMP generators, designed to destroy anything electronic. If a Digimon gets hit by one of those, they're not coming back, they get totally dispersed with no chance of reconfiguration." She said, and then braced herself for the inevitable onslaught that was about to come.  
"And you designed them. You designed a weapon to kill innocent creatures just trying to defend themselves." Matt said, in an oddly calm tone of voice.  
"Yes I did it. Is that what you want to hear." Erin shouted back, tears now forming in her eyes.  
"What I want to hear is.." but Matt was cut short by Davis shouting,  
"Okay, neutral corners people. Lets take five minuets to calm down and clear our heads." Everyone obeyed Davis' order without question and one by one filed out of Izzy's bedroom, everyone except Erin and Davis.

"Just so you know I'm with Cody on this one." Davis said to Erin. She smiled weekly.  
"Thank you." Was all she could manage to say. After a short silence Davis said,  
"Why did you do it, why do these things for them?" He asked.  
"They didn't tell us anything. I had no idea what I was developing or what it was going to be used for. I just did what they told me to do." She answered, choking back the tears that were now rapidly forming. Silence returned to the pair, and was not broken until Erin said,  
"I hate everything they made me do. Everything, and I want to do all I can to help you take them down." She said finding it increasingly hard to keep the tears back. "But now it looks like that will be impossible." She added before she broke down completely. She started crying uncontrollably, Davis tried to comfort her but to no avail. So he resigned to just sitting, holding her being her shoulder to cry on.  
In the lounge the rest of the group sat around the coffee table in silence, none of them looking at each other. Some of them were visibly more upset by the turn of events than the others. Terriormon and Patamon had joined the other Digimon, and were now asleep so they missed the heated arguments that had come from the other room. After what seemed like forever, Davis emerged from Izzy's bedroom and signalled to the other digi-destined to come back in. Erin had composed her self a little now and was standing by the window.

The atmosphere was slightly less hostile now that everyone had had the chance to clear their heads, however there were still some very angry faces around the room. Once everyone was in the room Erin began,  
"Everyone listen please. I didn't want any of this to happen, and I assure you as soon as I found out what they were doing I left as soon as I could, only they wont accept that." Matt looked as if he were about to say something but was cut off by Erin,  
"Please let me finish before you tear into me." She said, and Matt backed off. "I really had no idea what they were doing until I broke into the main computer, several of my team were beginning to get suspicious of what was going on and as I had received the training in computer infiltration it was my job to find out what exactly was going on." She paused for breath before continuing. "What I found was truly horrifying. Everything my team had been designing and developing, the EMP guns, the sentinels, everything was for a large-scale incursion of another world. The Digital World. They came across it quite by accident, one of their computer experts stumbled across what looked like a portal into another dimension. That was three years ago, it took them a year to find out exactly what it was, and then they started recruiting. I think they got most of the digi-destined in the country, or at least it looked like that. Soon after they sent in the sentinels that my team had modified, and it's taken them nearly two years for them to get enough of a foot hold to be able to start sending in the field agents." She paused again. She looked as if she was recalling a very bad memory "Then I got to what they were planning to do once they had control of the world. They were planning to dissect the entire world, in a manner of speaking, with no regard for the life there. You see an entire world made of data, an entirely digital world, is a very unique thing to come across, and unique is always valuable. At least it is to them. Once they had found all the secrets the Digital World had to offer they were going to sell it to the highest bidder. Can you imagine the advances in computer technology that would be made with the information the Digital World had to offer?" She paused once more. It was becoming obvious that this was very hard for her to relay to the digi-destined, especially in light of what she had done against the Digital World. "Once I knew this I immediately knew they had to be taken down. One of the last things I did before I left them was to get a transfer order, for my dad, to come here. You see there is a small resistance movement within the DWC, once they found out what was going on, and you lot are legendary among us, so I came here hoping to elicit your help. I left under the pretext of spying on you, to my superiors at least, and once I got here I let them know just what I thought of them. The only problem was that I got lumbered with Johns. But now he considers me an enemy of MI6." She finished. She finally sat down in front of the group, tears once again forming in the corners of her eyes. "Okay I'm finished now, you can tear into me all you want." She said, waiting for the slew of arguments to come. But none came. Everyone was silent.

"We have to stop them. Immediately." Erin said, after several minuets of silence, "Now I can try to do it on my own, or you can help. I don't expect you to want to help me after what I have done," she said, pausing. But before she could finish her sentence, Davis stood up.  
"I'm willing to help." He said, turning to face the rest of the group. Cody was the next to stand.  
"I've been wrong about people before, and if Erin's right then she deserves our help." He said, also turning to face the group. Erin now stood up, between the two boys but said nothing. Ken was the next to join the small group.  
"After what I did to the Digimon." He said, but he didn't need to finish the sentence, the others knew what he was thinking. Eventually, one by one, the other digi-destined stood up to join Erin, some more reluctantly than others. Matt and Yolei were the last to stand. Erin couldn't repress the smile that appeared on her face after all of the digi-destined had agreed to help her.  
"Thank you," she said warmly to the group. "I don't expect you all to trust me, but if we are going to succeed then you need to at least listen to me." She told the group.  
"Hey Newbie, we all have things in our past we would rather forget." Ken said defensively to Erin. She nodded in acknowledgement and smiled at the fact he was still using her nickname. "And that is no reason for us to stop trusting each other, you're here after all, telling us all this." He added.  
"Shall was all sit down?" Erin asked after a moment's silence. She was trying to lift the hostile atmosphere in the room, and it worked. Most of the group smiled now that they had seen that everyone was standing, and at Erin's injection of humour. However, there was still an air of distrust around some of the occupants of the room. Erin expected this and as such didn't mention anything about it.  
"So that was how you were able to gain access to all the information, you hacked MI6." Izzy said, grinning.  
"It wasn't actually that involved. Johns hasn't yet removed my clearance from the computer systems back in London, so I was able to just log straight in. And as my department had direct access to the sentinels none of that information was classified for my clearance level." Erin told Izzy.  
"Interesting." Was Izzy's response.  
"Okay if we're going to take down this DWC then we need a plan." Tai said, changing the subject to more important matters. "Any ideas?" He asked. The group sat pondering for a while. Several plans were brought forward, but none of them could have been implemented as they all relied on taking on the sentinel viruses and forgetting about the teams of digi-destined from MI6. Finally after the tenth unsuccessful suggestion, Erin ventured fourth a plan.  
"Okay, how about if I go back to Johns." She said. This generated more distrust from the group.  
"And do what?" Yolei asked.  
"Tell him I have reconsidered. Go back to London, and try to shut them down from the inside." She said.  
"How?" Tai asked.  
"I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I can do some serious damage to their computer systems from the base and close their digi port permanently." She said.  
"What kind of tricks?" Izzy asked, taking out his notepad once again.  
"Later Izz," Tai told him. "I don't like that plan." He added.  
"What, do you think I am going to betray you?" Erin asked.  
"No. Not at all, if anything, quite the opposite, which is the problem." Tai answered. "If you go back, they're going to suspect something's up which is going to make them suspicious of you. When you ask for an immediate transfer back to London, that's only going to make things worse. They will be watching you like a hawk. If you put one foot out of line, do anything that they might think is against them and you'll be in serious trouble, which means we'll be in serious trouble as well as the whole Digital World and we can't afford that." Tai told her.  
"Your right, I hadn't thought of that." Erin said, "Just give me some time, I'll think of another way to stop them, a plan B." She said.  
"You're right we all need a break, let's call it a night." Tai said to the group. It was now very late, and most of the group were very tired. It had been an extremely long day, and the group were about ready for some sleep.  
"Right, so shall we meet back here tomorrow?" Tai asked.  
"Oh no," Davis moaned. "We've been inside the last two days, can't we go outside tomorrow?" He asked.  
"Fine, we'll meet in the park. About ten thirty?" Tai suggested. There were some reluctant agreements from certain members of the group, but everybody eventually agreed. After everyone had said goodbye, everyone left to go back to their apartments.

They all went in separate directions from leaving Izzy's place, which left Davis and Erin alone once more.  
"Thank you so much for sticking with me today." Erin told him.  
"That's no problem, like Ken said we all have things we would rather not have on instant replay." He told her.  
"I was going to ask about that. What is the deal with Ken and the Digital World?" She asked.  
"That is a long story, and I'm probably not the one to tell you. When this is all over we'll have to replay our first meeting, only this time with no secrets. It'll be a proper get to know you type of thing." Davis said.  
"No liars, no guns, no money." Erin said, smiling properly for the first time all day.  
"I don't know about that, someone's going to have to buy the pizza." Davis said, also smiling. Erin laughed a little.  
"Hey guys, wait up." Came a voice from behind them. They turned round to see T.K running to catch them up.  
"Dude, where have you been?" Davis asked T.K. He blushed a little.  
"Nowhere." T.K said grinning, he then turned to Erin.  
"Erin, I want to apologise." He said,  
"What for?" She asked.  
"Well for not trusting you, for thinking you were selling the Digital World out, but now I can tell you are as devoted as we are to protecting it. Maybe even more so about this whole MI6 thing." He said.  
"That's fine, but you know you have every right to feel like that." She said.  
"Oh please, lets not start that again." Davis broke in.  
"Sorry." Erin said quickly. "Actually, I do have a question, why is it that Patamon and Gatomon stay Patamon and Gatomon when we're out of the Digital World but yours Cody's and Yolei's Digimon change?" She asked.  
"I'm not too sure, it might have something to do with the fact that Patamon came to this world before and digivolved naturally to Patamon while here and Demiveemon and the others haven't. And Gatomon was already Gatomon when she was brought here by Myotismon." T.K answered.  
"I noticed Terriormon stayed Terriormon as well." Davis answered.  
"Now I'm stuck. I don't have an explanation for that one." T.K said. By this time they had reached T.K's apartment block, so he said goodnight to Erin and Davis and went inside. The pair then went the rest of the way to their apartments talking about nothing in particular.  
"Well I'll see you tomorrow then." Erin said as they reached her apartment.  
"Oh right. Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow." Davis said, not noticing they had already reached her block.  
"Don't worry, I'll have plan B thought out by tomorrow." She told him.  
"I'll hold you to that." He said, and with that they went their separate ways.

To Be Continued... 


	7. Plan B

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 7 - "Plan B..."

Yolei, Ken and Cody walked slowly to the bus stop where Ken caught his bus. They walked in silence, each in their own thoughts, but each thinking about the same thing. It was beginning to get dark, and by the time they had reached the bus stop the streetlights were coming on. Yolei was the first to speak, after they had stopped and were waiting for the bus.  
"Do you really think she was serious, about the British government I mean?" She asked, the others remained silent. "I mean, don't you think that's it's a bit implausible that a security service of a government would go about recruiting kids to do their work for them?" She also asked. Ken considered this for a moment.  
"I think it's very plausible." He answered.  
"How?" Cody asked.  
"Well think of it this way, they're a spy agency so they will use any and all resources to get their job done, regardless of what those resources are." Ken explained.  
"That's a good point." Cody replied. The group returned to silence.  
"But do you believe anything she said though?" Yolei asked.  
"You still don't trust her do you?" Cody asked in return.  
"Not entirely, no." Yolei answered.  
"Well you trust me don't you?" Ken asked.  
"Of course I do." Yolei said.  
"And yet what I did to the Digital World was far worse than anything Erin has done." Ken reasoned.  
"I know. It's not that really, it's just that after she lied to us like that, I can't help but think she might be hiding more from us." Yolei replied.  
"I know how you feel, and I'm sure most of the others feel the same," Ken told Yolei, "But if we're going to save the Digital World, we're going to have to trust her. After all, she knows more about all this spy stuff than all of us." He finished.  
"I know, and I'll try. I guess," she said. "Hey, you know what's been bugging me for a few days now?" Yolei asked, changing the subject quite abruptly. Yolei was well known for doing this, and everyone took it for granted that when they were having a lengthy conversation with her, the subject would change quite frequently.  
"No, what?" Cody asked.  
"When did Davis become claustrophobic? He never acted like that when we were in the Digital World last year." She asked.  
"I really don't know." Ken answered.  
"Me neither." Cody answered.  
"He hasn't told you?" She asked Ken, "I thought you two were best friends?" She added.  
"Maybe it's not something he feels comfortable talking about." Ken answered.  
"Maybe your right. But I plan to find out though." Yolei said grinning. Ken was about to reply, but before he could his bus arrived.  
"Late as usual." Was all he could manage to say before getting on the bus. He kissed Yolei goodbye and left. After the bus disappeared from view, Cody and Yolei continued walking back to their apartment block.

The following morning, at the Kamiya's apartment, Tai, Kari and Sora, who had spent the night there, were getting ready for today's meeting in the park. Matt and T.K had also joined them. At the kitchen counter Matt, Tai and Sora were discussing back up plans in case Erin was unable to think of a plan or if her plan was no good. While this was going on, in the lounge T.K and Kari were sitting on the sofa having their own conversation.  
"So how about next Friday then?" Kari asked.  
"Friday's good," T.K answered, "That is if we're all still alive by Friday." He joked.  
"I'm sure whatever Erin has planned will be over by the weekend, and we can go back to just being normal again." Kari said.  
"Have you even known anything like this be over so quickly"  
"No, you have a point. I guess we will just have to trust that Erin knows what she's doing"  
"You do trust her then"  
"Do we have a choice," Kari answered, she left a pause before continuing. "I'm not one to pass judgement so quickly, but if she wanted to help us then why didn't she tell us right from the start." She asked.  
"I'm not sure." T.K answered. They were silent for a moment before T.K spoke again, "You know what's really been annoying me about this whole situation?" He asked.  
"No, what?" Kari asked in return.  
"We haven't had any time for each other. I know we just arranged our second date, but we haven't spent any time alone for ever." He said. Kari grinned.  
"We have time now." She said, eyeing her bedroom door. With that she grabbed T.K's hand and they headed towards her room. Tai, noticing their less than discreet getaway, stood up.  
"Where are you two going?" He asked.  
"We have to, err, talk to Gatomon about something." Kari answered hastily, and before anyone had the chance to say anything else they had disappeared into the room and closed the door. Tai stared, expressionless, at the spot where his sister and her boyfriend and been standing less than two seconds ago, blinked a few times then sat back down with the rest of the group. It was quite some time before anyone noticed that Gatomon was sleeping on one of the armchairs in the lounge.

"So what do we have so far?" Tai said trying to recap the backup plans the small group had come up with.  
"Err, so far, running in the opposite direction screaming like six year olds." Matt said, making one of his wise cracks.  
"So we can take that as nothing then." Sora answered, a little more helpfully.  
"The only thing I can think of is we let Izzy try and do something to their computers." Tai said.  
"Do you think he'll be able to do anything like that?" Sora asked.  
"We can ask him," Matt said, "Maybe Yolei can help him, she knows her way around a computer." He added. They looked at each other for a moment.  
"What's the time?" Sora asked.  
"Ten." Tai answered.  
"We'd better make a move towards the park then." Matt said.  
"Okay, I'll get the love birds from Kari's room then." Tai said moving towards his sister's bedroom. He knocked on the door.  
"Guys we have to go now." He shouted through the door. A loud thump was heard, which was quickly followed by T.K and Kari emerging from the room laughing hysterically. Kari was once again adjusting T.K's hat, only this time it was on her own head not his. This received some odd looks from the others but nothing was said. T.K and Kari collected their Digimon and headed for the front door.  
"There you are Gatomon," Kari said, as she picked up her still half asleep Digimon from the chair. "We've been looking all over for you." She added, very unconvincingly. Gatomon, who had no idea what was going on, simply went back to sleep in Kari's arms. Kari and T.K headed out the door quickly to avoid the looks coming from the others.  
"I'm glad to see you found some time to have some fun." Tai called after them. The trio then also left.

When they arrived at the park they found that a number of digi-destined were already there. Mimi was sitting with Izzy, talking, and Cody was with Davis, who were sitting near Erin. She was pacing up and down nervously, chewing on her thumb nail. As the small group joined the others sitting down, T.K and Kari gained some very strange looks as Kari was still wearing T.K's hat. Tai, who noticed these looks, said,  
"You should have seen them come out of her bedroom." With that everybody rolled their eyes and continued with their conversations. Events like that were becoming more than a common occurrence. The small group sat with the others to wait for the rest of the group to arrive. Joe was the next to arrive, he sat with Mimi and Izzy and shortly after Yolei and Ken arrived. Erin waited a while before starting to explain her plan to the group. Davis had lost count of the amount of times he had told her to relax.  
"If you keep chewing that thumb, you'll end up biting it off." He told her. This relaxed her a little but she still kept pacing nervously. After what she considered a suitable amount of time for everyone to greet each other, she stopped pacing and stood in front of the group.  
"Hi," she said to the group. "Now that everybody's here..." She said, and then broke off. She paced a bit more, and then returned to the front of the group.

"My plan," she said, "We hack their computers. Royally screw over their systems and send them back to the Stone Age." She told them quickly.  
"Hack MI6?" Tai asked.  
"Yes." Erin answered.  
"Bad idea," Izzy said, "They will trace us in two seconds, it's too risky." He explained.  
"Well then we do it from the Digital World. They wont be able to get signal from us there. Believe me this is the only way to stop them." She said.  
"Can we do something like that from the Digital World?" Cody asked.  
"It's possible." Izzy said, considering the suggestion. "The only problem is that it will take longer than it would here"  
"That's not too much of a problem though, is it?" Mimi asked.  
"It shouldn't be, so long as we keep them occupied long enough so that they can't block our attacks on their systems." Erin answered.  
"Okay so we attack their computers from the Digital World, what do we need to do?" Tai asked.  
"We have to kill the three main areas of the system. Firstly their database, it holds all of the information regarding the Digital World. Next we go after the sentinels. They operate in two halves, one half running around the Digital World, the other on a computer communicating with its partner. We will have to go after the computer halves, without them the ones in the Digital World will cease to exist. Finally we have to close their port permanently, stop them from getting back in." Erin answered.  
"Oh, so not a lot then." Matt said sarcastically. This gained a few grins from some of the group but was mostly ignored.  
"That sounds reasonable, the only thing is we will have to wait for all of their teams to be out of the Digital World before we take their gate down." Tai said.  
"That shouldn't be a problem, there are no plans for any teams to be sent in tomorrow." Erin replied.  
"How do you know that?" Sora asked.  
"I was looking through the files available to my clearance last night. For some reason Johns hasn't removed me from the system yet." Erin answered.  
"He's probably using that to keep track of you, it will probably be a good idea not to go back on their systems anymore." Ken suggested.  
"Yes, I thought of that," Erin said, "But with any luck they won't have a computer system to track me with for much longer." She added.  
"How long do you think it will take you to destroy all of their systems?" Joe asked.  
"There's no way I can do this on my own, I'll need help." Erin answered; she then turned to Izzy and Yolei. "Izzy, Yolei. You two have the most experience with this sort of thing. I'll need you to help me take their computers down." She told them. At hearing this Izzy started grinning.  
"I'm going to help you to hack a government department?" He asked, but before waiting for an answer he added, "Yeah, I'll help. But it's not like I do this sort of thing any other time." He said quite unconvincingly.  
"Of course." Erin replied grinning. She then turned to Yolei. "Yolei, you up for this?" She asked. Yolei didn't look nearly as excited as Izzy had done. She remained silent for some time. Ken then leaned over and whispered something to her that the others couldn't hear.  
"I'll do it." She finally said, apprehensively. Erin grinned again.  
"Excellent," she said, "I'll go over what you have to do later." She told them.

"We have another problem." Tai said.  
"What's that?" Cody asked.  
"The sentinels." Erin answered, making eye contact with Tai who nodded in agreement.  
"Once they find out what we're doing they are going to attack us with everything they've got." He told the group.  
"And since they can become anything, that's going to make them quite difficult to fight." Sora said, following the others line of reasoning.  
"That's right," Erin said, "They aren't that dangerous, but if we don't know what we're fighting we could end up attacking something innocent." She said.  
"How do we get round that one then?" Izzy asked.  
"I think I can get them all assume the same form, and make them stay like that, but it will have to be unique. Something different that isn't naturally occurring in the Digital World so we know what we're attacking. Any ideas?" She asked. The group was silent for a moment.  
"Keramon." Tai said. Several members of the group drew blanks on the name Keramon, including Erin.  
"Keramon?" Cody asked. Tai then launched into an explanation.  
"Do you remember the virus Digimon that attacked the Internet about five years ago?" He asked the group. Most of them nodded their heads, but for the benefit of those who still looked confused, which consisted of Erin, Tai continued. "There was a Digimon, which was created by an American digi-destined called Willis, that got infected by this virus. He thought it would be a good idea to try and take over the Internet." He explained to her. "He launched nuclear missiles at Japan and the USA, but they were stopped when Wargreymon and Metalgarurumon DNA digivolved to Omnimon and defeated the Digimon called Diaboromon. Anyway, Keramon was that Digimon's rookie form." He finished.  
"That would make sense then," Erin said, "There's not likely to be many Keramon running around the Digital World if there was only one to begin with"  
"Exactly." Tai exclaimed.  
"Okay then, tell me what he looked like and I will make all of the sentinels take his form." Erin said.  
"I think I still have a picture of him, I'll dig it out for you later." Izzy said.

"If we're doing this in the Digital World, there's one more thing we need to do," Erin told the group, "We will have to make a stop at one of the DWC's equipment stores before we start our attack"  
"What for?" Joe asked.  
"Weapons." Erin said, solemnly. This remark shocked most of the digi-destined.  
"What do we need weapons for?" Matt asked, getting slightly angry.  
"When those sentinels attack, they are going to do so in truly massive numbers. There will be far too many for us to take out with only our Digimon, not to mention the fact that three of us won't be fighting at all." Erin answered, matching Matt's anger. "We can use their EMP guns. They will disperse the sentinels quickly and efficiently." She told them.  
"I'm not comfortable with this." Tai told Erin.  
"Neither am I," she shouted back, "But it's the only way to keep them off our backs until we're finished." She added, more calmly. Ignoring the stunned silence of the group she continued. "Okay, looking through a map they have generated, this appears to be the safest place to launce our attack." She indicated an area surrounded by forest on the map. "This should provide us with some cover from attack. That is providing they don't have any sentinels acting as trees in that area. Also there is an equipment store in a cave not far from there." She told the group. Davis paled a little at hearing about the cave, but he managed at avoid anyone seeing by quickly looking behind him. "Once we collect everything we need from the cave we can go onto the forest and start our attack." She finished. She waited a moment then resumed pacing.  
"That's the plan?" Matt asked.  
"That's the only feasible one I could think of." Erin answered.  
"Sounds reasonable." Matt replied.  
"I'm glad you think so. Does anyone have any questions?" She asked.  
"Basically you want us to watch your backs while you three work your magic?" Tai asked.  
"That's about the sum it, yeah. It that a problem?" Erin asked back.  
"No problem, so long as I don't have to do any computer work," Tai said, "my computing skills extend to surfing the Internet and writing e-mails. What you're talking about is going way over my head." He added, and to illustrate the point he passed one of his hands, back and fourth, over his head. This made the group chuckle a little and help lift the less than friendly atmosphere that had settled over the group since Erin had mentioned using weapons. Once she was sure there were no other questions, Erin separated Izzy and Yolei form the group and moved to a quieter spot while the other digi-destined split into smaller groups and started their own conversations.

"Any luck thinking up a back up plan?" Matt asked. Tai Matt and Sora had resumed their earlier conversation, and were now sitting apart from the rest of the group.  
"Not yet, it looks like we're going to have to go with Erin's plan." Tai answered.  
"Hey, even Matt said it sounded reasonable." Sora said, defending the plan.  
"True, but she wants us to use weapons." Matt countered.  
"From what I understand of these virus things, their not alive like the Digimon so destroying them is doing anything wrong. Besides if what she says is true about the numbers they'll attack in, there could be too many for our Digimon to handle, even for the ultimates." Sora said.  
"These are all good points," Tai said, breaking up the impending argument, "But I would still like a fall back in case things go wrong." He told them. The group was silent for a moment.  
"Well, I'm all out of ideas. How about you two?" Matt asked the others.  
"Me too." Sora said, joining the joke.  
"Well just keep thinking on it. I don't want to go in there tomorrow without a backup plan." Tai told the other two.  
"Since when has a backup meant anything to you anyway?" Matt asked sarcastically. "We're already on plan B. Are you aiming for the whole alphabet?" He asked just as sarcastically.  
"He's got a point Tai. You never really have been one for thinking up back up plans. In fact you could have been the pin up boy for frontal assault in the old days." Sora said. This made Tai grin a little.  
"You think I could be a pin up boy?" He asked, casting a sly grin in Sora's direction and flexing his arm muscles.  
"Oh, to be in the warm glow of all this testosterone." Matt said to himself, but loud enough so the others could hear him.  
"Like you would be any different if your girlfriend had just told you you could be a pin up boy." Tai challenged, still grinning.  
"Yeah well fortunately I don't have that problem, and besides I think Sora was being sarcastic." Matt shot back, also grinning. While Tai and Matt were arguing, Sora had moved between them and grabbed them both by the ear.  
"Will the both of you stop it. You could both make the centre page of 'Big Boys In Boots'. As a couple." She told them. This caused the boys to burst out laughing. "You think?" Matt asked. After they had broken free of Sora's vice like grip, the boys struck a pose together that wouldn't look out of place in a clothes catalogue. This caused them to laugh even more.  
"If you wouldn't mind I'd like to get back to the matter at hand." She said.  
"To hell with a backup plan," Tai said, "If something goes wrong we'll just have to improvise like we did in the old days." He told them in between fits of laughter.  
"That's more like the Tai I used to know." Sora said.  
"Besides, I don't think Tai couldn't think up a backup plan." Matt said, also between fits of laughter.  
"This is also true." Tai said, his laughter now subsiding but still with a very large grin on his face.

"What is going on over there?" Mimi asked. She was sitting in another small group with Joe, Cody and Ken. They had just witnessed Tai and Matt's display, and were also laughing.  
"It looks like they're posing for a men's fashion magazine." Joe said.  
"Well what ever makes them happy." Ken said. This group had been quizzing Mimi about what living in New York was like as the only time anyone had really had a chance was at Mimi's welcome back party. She cast a last glance back at the smaller group, who were now collapsed on the ground in hysterics, and turned back to her group.  
"Sorry, what did you ask?" She asked Joe. He was also still watching the other group, but Mimi's question brought him back to his small group.  
"Oh, I wanted to know if you had the chance to see any other parts of America while you were over there?" He asked her.  
"Oh yeah," she answered enthusiastically, "We went all over the place. We saw the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Yosemite national park, which was really beautiful. We went to Florida to see a space shuttle launce. We, somehow, found ourselves in Oklahoma and got caught up with this group of people chasing tornados." She told them "I bet that was fun." Cody said.  
"It was actually quite fascinating, people do it for a living out there"  
"Are they mad?" Joe asked, sounding surprised at the fact people would choose to do something so dangerous.  
"Probably, there are other people that do it for fun as well." She told them.  
"They must be mad." Joe said, even more surprised. Mimi giggled a little at his remark.  
"Where was your favourite place you saw while you were out there?" Cody asked.  
"Outside of New York, Seattle. Now there is a city I could happily spend the rest of my life." She answered.  
"Isn't that right up the top near Canada where it's really cold?" Joe asked.  
"Well it's quite near the top, in the state of Washington. It wasn't actually that cold, when I was there at least. But even if it was, the city would more than make up for it. For a start the view from the top of the space needle was just awesome." She said.  
"And don't tell me it had its fair share of shops as well." Ken said.  
"Well of course." Mimi answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  
"Hey guys, shouldn't we be doing something about what's going to happen tomorrow?" Cody asked.  
"Like what?" Ken asked.  
"I don't know, it just seems like we're a little too relaxed for people who are about to do battle with possibly thousands of computer viruses." He said to the group.  
"Believe me this is the best thing for us to be doing," Joe told him, "Getting worked up and nervous will only make things worse tomorrow." He added.  
"Besides, I'd rather not think about that today, the weathers too nice." Mimi said stretching out on the grass.

While this was going on T.K, Kari and Davis were having an all-together different conversation.  
"So, you and Erin seem to getting quite close." Kari remarked.  
"Yeah, I noticed that as well Davis. What's going on between you two?" T.K asked.  
"There's nothing going on." Davis answered.  
"Oh come on. Do you really expect us to believe that?" Kari asked rhetorically.  
"Believe what you like, but I'm telling you there's nothing between me and Carter." Davis told them.  
"Okay lets look at the evidence," T.K said, putting on his best game show presenter voice. "First up was the large amount of time you spent together when she first joined the group." He explained to Davis, now in his own voice.  
"Then there was that hug in the cave." Kari said joining in.  
"Don't forget you were one of the first to side with Erin yesterday." T.K continued.  
"It's also common knowledge that Erin has had her eye on you ever since she came here from England." Kari finished.  
"I had completely forgotten about that." T.K said, turning to Kari before returning to Davis.  
"Okay so maybe there's some chemistry, but honestly we're just friends." Davis said to them.  
"Oh there we go, now I know something else is going on." Kari said grinning broadly.  
"What do you mean?" Davis asked.  
"Do you really expect us to believe you now after using that excuse. The very excuse that me and Kari copyrighted." T.K said also grinning.  
"Oh man, I can't believe I said that." Davis said disappointedly to himself. "Okay, so maybe I do like her a little." He said, "But that's as far as it's gone so far." He added quickly.  
"I knew we would get to the bottom of it eventually." Kari said while high fiving T.K.  
"I was going to ask her out on a date, but then all this blew up and I never got a chance." Davis told the pair. The small group was silent for a moment.  
"Davis if there's one thing I've learnt since I started going out with Kari is you should never wait to tell anyone how you feel." T.K said to Davis sympathetically. "I did, and look how long it took us to get together." T.K added.  
"You should tell her Davis, as soon a possible." Kari added.  
"I would, but now really isn't the best time for that." Davis said to them.  
"Then wait until it's over, but don't wait too long." T.K told him.  
"Okay, but you have to help me. I'm not very good with this sort of thing." Davis replied looking vaguely in Erin's direction.  
"Your on." T.K and Kari said together.

While those conversations were going on, Erin was still talking business with Izzy and Yolei. She was explaining to them what they needed to do the following day.  
"We'll each take one system. That way we can get through them more quickly and also it will present DWC with more than one target and hopefully confuse them." Erin told the pair.  
"That sounds reasonable." Izzy said.  
"First, Yolei I want you to take down the database. That should be fairly easy as it's the least protected part of their computer network. When you're done with that you can move on to help Izzy." She said turning to Izzy, "I want you to concentrate on getting the port closed." She told him.  
"That could be tricky as we haven't had to do that before, I'm not sure how to do it. I'll have to do some research later." He said.  
"Okay, that's probably a good idea. When you're both finished with that you can move on to help me. I'll be attacking the computer that holds the sentinels. It's the most heavily guarded section of the network. It'll probably take me twenty minutes just to break through the security on the computer." She said to them.  
"Okay so that's the plan, what do I do?" Yolei asked, it was the first time she had spoken since being separated from the rest of the group.  
"Once you're in you will have to delete the main files on the database. There are four main files, which must be deleted individually. There are also several sub files, but they can be removed at the same time. You will know when you have finished because all of the remaining files will make no sense because they are linked to the files that have been removed." As Erin was talking Yolei made mental notes on what she had to do.  
"And how about when we get to sentinel computer?" Izzy asked.  
"There is a similar procedure. I won't know exactly what will need to be done until I get in there." She answered.  
"Okay, I have just e-mailed you a picture of Keramon so you know what to make the sentinels look like." Izzy said to Erin. He had his laptop set-up and typing something.  
"Thanks. Well if that's all, I suggest we go and make a plan of action with the rest of the group." Erin suggested. The small nodded on agreement, stood up and walked towards the other smaller groups.

Once everyone noticed Erin, Izzy and Yolei walking towards them, they stopped their conversations and turned to face the trio. Tai was the first to speak.  
"You know what your doing?" He asked.  
"I think we'll get through." Izzy answered.  
"We will have to start early tomorrow as it could take quite a long time to take the computers down." Erin told the group.  
"Right, so if we meet at my place at nine thirty we can go from there." Tai suggested to the group. Several members of the group groaned at hearing they had to be up so early. Tai looked around the group, "Is that okay with everyone?" He asked. Everyone, reluctantly, nodded their heads in agreement.  
"I say we try to dial into this port," Erin said indicating a gate on the map near the area she had indicated earlier. "If all goes well we shouldn't emerge too far from it. Once we arrive we will quickly need to make our way to the equipment store to gear up and from there onto the forest to begin." She said. Everybody seemed to agree with this recommendation.  
"I suggest we get lots of rest tonight, and feed up your Digimon. They'll need all the energy they can get for tomorrow." Tai told them. Once again the group silently agreed. In the short time she had known her Digimon, Erin had realised that they rarely stop eating.  
"Izzy, Yolei, I suggest you work on a way to take down the gate tonight." Erin suggested. The pair both agreed. With that the meeting came to a natural end. With a few good byes the group split up once more to prepare for their upcoming task in the Digital World.

To Be Continued... 


	8. Into The Lion's Den

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 8 - "Once more unto the breach: Part1 -  
Into the lion's den."

At nine o' clock on Friday morning at the Kamiya's apartment, eight members of the digi-destined were sitting around the small coffee table in the lounge. There were two large coffee pots on the table surrounded by five coffee cups. The small room was quite crowded because as well as the eight humans there were nine Digimon as well. Tai had decided the previous night that they should bring back all of the Digimon for two reasons. First to let them know what was going to happen the following day, and second to allow them to get fed up properly. The Digimon were all sitting in one corner of the room eating from a large plate of toast that Matt had just brought in from the kitchen. The remaining occupants of the room were sitting on the sofas or on the floor. Tai and Sora were sitting on one of the sofas with Izzy. Matt, T.K and Kari were sitting on the other one. Erin was on the armchair and Davis was sitting on the floor in front of it. The TV was playing in the opposite corner to the Digimon but nobody was paying any real attention to it. The group was rather subdued, although that didn't stop anyone from making jokes when Davis turned up half an hour early. Erin reached over Davis to her cup, only to find it was empty. She went to refill it from the nearest coffee pot, only to find that was empty as well.  
"Is there any coffee left in that pot?" She asked Tai. He picked up the put and shook it slightly.  
"Empty." He answered.  
"Okay, whose turn it is this time." Erin asked looking around the group.  
"I think its Matt's." Sora answered.  
"Oh no, I made the toast for the Digimon." Matt replied.  
"Well I made the last batch." Tai chipped in.  
"It must be Izzy's then." Erin said looking in his direction. Izzy looked up from his laptop, oblivious to the conversation that had just occurred.  
"I heard my name, what did I miss?" He asked, looking around the group.  
"It's your turn to make the coffee." Tai said.  
"Already!" Izzy exclaimed. "How much coffee do you people drink?" He asked rhetorically as he got up and collected the pots from the Table. He headed for the kitchen.  
"I'm so glad I don't drink that stuff." Kari said.  
"Why's that?" Sora asked.  
"Well I don't have to keep getting up to refill the pots." Kari answered.  
"I can see why that's an advantage. Comfortable?" Sora asked grinning. She had just noticed how she was sitting. Kari was half lying across T.K, with his arm draped across her shoulders. Kari blushed slightly.  
"Yes, thank you." Kari said back. T.K on the other hand was barely awake and as such didn't react to Sora's comment. The group then heard the doorbell ring.  
"I'll get it." Izzy called from the kitchen.

"Hey Izzy." Mimi said from the doorway. It was obvious that Mimi, like most of the digi-destined, didn't care much for early mornings. Her eyes were half open, and she was in the middle of yawning when Izzy opened the door.  
"Hey Mimi, hey Palmon." Izzy answered standing aside to let Mimi into the apartment. "You look just like I feel," he said wearily, commenting on the look of tiredness about her. "Coffee?" He asked. Mimi's eyes picked up at hearing the word 'coffee.  
"Do you even need to ask?" She asked back. Izzy grinned a little and returned to the kitchen as Mimi and Palmon made their way to the lounge.  
"Hey guys." She said from behind one of the sofas.  
"Hey Mimi." The group replied, not moving. Palmon joined the other Digimon and started on the toast, while Mimi took a place on the floor in front of Tai's sofa.  
"I see it's all go in here this morning." She said as sarcastically as she could at ten past nine in the morning. Most of the group groaned.  
"What do you expect it's still midnight." Davis said, stifling a yawn.  
"Oh come on, it's not that bad." Sora defended, but before anyone could argue the doorbell went again. Izzy had just returned carrying two coffee pots, so was in no position to answer the door. So instead Tai stood up.  
"I'll get it then." He said to the group as he made his way slowly to the front door. He found Joe on the other side of the door.  
"Morning." Joe said. Tai didn't return the greeting, instead he just said.  
"Izzy's just made coffee. If you're quick you might get a cup." This was all Joe needed to hear. He headed straight for the lounge, not even pausing to collect the cup that Tai held out for him.  
"Hey guys." He said as he entered the lounge, and before anyone had a chance to reply he was filling his cup. It was just after this that he noticed Gomamon sitting with the other Digimon.  
"Gomamon, what are you doing here?" He asked.  
"Tai brought me back last night." Gomamon replied through a mouthful of toast.  
"We tried to let you know but your phone was busy all last night." Tai explained.  
"Sorry," Joe said back, "I was on the Internet all last night researching"  
"Can anyone remember when we started becoming caffeine addicts?" Matt asked out of the blue, draining his cup of coffee.  
"That's easy, the very moment we started taking important exams." Sora answered.  
"I'll say it again, I am so glad I don't drink that stuff." Kari said smugly.  
"You don't know what you're missing." Erin said tiredly. She then turned to Izzy.

"Izzy, did you have any luck finding a way to take down the digi-port?" She asked.  
"Partially." Izzy answered. "I managed to access the port dialling program, and found that if you keep dialling different exit ports before the entry port has had a chance to connect properly, then the port becomes unstable and crashes." He explained. Tai looked around at the other occupants of the room.  
"Did anyone understand a word of that?" He asked. The rest of the group just looked blank.  
"The only thing is that won't close the port permanently." Izzy said.  
"That leaves us with something of a problem." Erin said.  
"I've got a few ideas, but nothing solid yet. I'll keep trying." Izzy told Erin. While the latter part of the conversation was proceeding, the doorbell went for a third time. This time Sora answered the door and found Yolei, Ken and Cody with their Digimon waiting outside. She let them in and they joined the others in the lounge. Upamon, Poromon and Minomon joined the other Digimon in the corner of the room, while their partners joined the others round the table.  
"How much toast did you make for then?" Sora asked Matt as she retook her place next to Tai on the sofa.  
"More than enough, obviously." Matt answered.  
"Well the Digimon aren't complaining." T.K remarked.  
"You are awake then." Kari said, looking up at T.K.  
"Only just." He groaned.

"Okay now that everyone's here," Tai said addressing the group, "And awake," he added looking at certain members of the group. "Are you all ready for today?" He asked. There was a mummer throughout the group. "I'll take that as a yes then." Tai said. "Any idea how long this is likely to take?" He asked.  
"Not really." Erin answered. "It depends on so many things." She explained.  
"Like what?" Ken asked.  
"Well for a start we have no guarantee that we will come out anywhere near the port we dial into. On top of that we still don't know how to take down their gate." She answered.  
"I see. So it could take some time then." Ken commented.  
"Yes." Erin replied.  
"It might be a good idea then to tell everyone that you're all staying here tonight then." Tai suggested.  
"That's not a bad idea, and if we are done then we can have a big party tonight." Sora said. With this agreed on, everyone took it in turns to phone their parents to let them know that they were staying at Tai and Kari's for the night. Ten minutes later and everyone had finished with the phone.  
"Okay now that that's out of the way, we need supplies." Tai said.  
"Already taken care of." Yolei said cheerfully. "We stopped by my parents store this morning, that's why we were later than everyone else." She said.  
"That's good, 'cause I don't think we have anything here. That's why the Digimon are eating toast." Kari said, then added, "Were eating toast." As she noticed that the large plate was now empty.  
"Right, is there anything else we need before we leave?" Tai asked. The group shook their heads. "Well then I suggest we start moving. The quicker we get there, the quicker it will be over and we can start on the party." Tai said. The group silently agreed and all moved towards Tai's room, after the coffee drinkers had drained the last from their cups. The group stood uncertainly as Erin set up the computer to take them into the Digital World.  
"Everything set?" Tai asked after a few minutes.  
"I think so." Erin answered. The computer was displaying the familiar Digi-port configuration.  
"It looks like everything's okay. Where have you dialled up?" Tai asked.  
"I've set it to take us to this exit port." She said indicating a port on a map of the Digital World. "It should be about thirty minutes from the cave. That's if that's where we end up." She added.  
"Okay then. Do you want the honours?" Tai asked indicating that she should open the port.  
"Sure." She answered uncertainly. She moved to stand in front of the computer as the rest of the group readied their digivices. She held her digivice up to the computer and then looked round the group before turning back to the computer.  
"Digi-port open." She called just as uncertainly, but it worked none the less. The familiar flash of light emanated from the computer and the group were pulled in.

When the group emerged, in the usual heap at the foot of the small television, they immediately noticed that they weren't where they were supposed to be. They also noticed that the weather conditions were a lot worse than the last time they were in the Digital World. The clouds were now so bad, that it was almost impossible to tell if it was day or night. The temperature had also dropped quite drastically, and there was a strong wind. They had landed near a beach and as such were being attacked by the sand being blown around by the wind.  
"Could it be any colder here?" Davis asked as he pulled his goggles over his eyes.  
"They really do serve a purpose then." Kari called over the wind. Davis just looked at her.  
"Where are we?" Tai called over to Izzy, who was looking at his D-Terminal.  
"Were about two sectors from where we should be," he answered. "In fact there is the forest we should be in." He added, pointing to a nearby wooded area.  
"Then I suggest we start moving, get out of this sand." Tai called to the group. They hastily agreed and moved in the direction of the forest.

At half past midnight on Friday morning in London, England, several people in a large white and green coloured building on the bank of the river Thames were scrabbling around at several computers.  
"We have an incursion into the Digital World." One of the people said.  
"Can you get an ID?" Another asked.  
"IDC confirmed, its 4-5-2." The first person answered.  
"Get Johns." The other told a third person, who immediately left. A short while later Johns entered the large control room of the DWC.  
"What's the problem?" He asked the first person.  
"About ten minutes ago we registered an incursion into the Digital World. We picked up an identification code. It's 4-5-2." He replied.  
"Good work Mr. Jackson," he turned to the second person. "Worth, where are they headed?" He asked.  
"We've tracked them going through this forest so far, but we don't know where they're going." Worth answered.  
"Anything of interest in that general area?" Johns asked.  
"We have an equipment store about two miles from their current position, but that's all." Jackson answered.  
"Ready the sentinels and keep me apprised of any further developments." Johns ordered as he left the room.

The forest offered little shelter from the wind, but at least the digi-destined weren't being attacked by sand any more.  
"So how far is it to this cave?" Matt called to Izzy.  
"About two miles." Izzy called back "I'll be glad when the ports are working properly again, all this walking isn't healthy." Davis complained.  
"Here's me thinking that you're this great sports star, and here you are complaining about a little walk." Erin teased. The group laughed a little at Erin's joke, but then carried on walking in silence.  
"Have you had any thoughts about how to take the gate down?" Izzy asked Yolei after a while.  
"Not really," Yolei answered, "The only thing I could think of was to send garbage at it through an open port and hope to overload it." She said.  
"That might work. If after it crashes there is an open connection we can try unloading everything on it. I'll run a few tests once we reach the attack area." Izzy said. The group returned to silence.  
"Are we ever going to get our sun back?" Gatomon asked quietly.  
"I think so," Kari answered reassuringly. "Gennai thinks that this is just a result of the invasion. So once we stop the invasion we should be able to see the sky again." She told the cat like Digimon.  
"I do find the wind quite unsettling." Hawkmon told the group as he desperately tried to fly in a straight line.  
"Why don't you walk for a little while, you'll need to conserve your energy." Yolei told her Digimon.  
"Excellent suggestion." He said as he narrowly avoided being blown into a tree.

The group made little conversation on their way to the cave that held the equipment store. It took them almost an hour to reach the cave and much to the surprise of everyone, they didn't encounter any resistance.  
"Does anyone else get the feeling we're being watched?" Yolei asked the group.  
"Yeah," answered Sora, "I've had the feeling for a while now." She said.  
"That's probably because we are." Erin said nonchalantly.  
"What do you mean?" Matt said with a hint of anger in his voice. The group stopped walking.  
"They've most likely been tracking us," she answered. "Probably from the signals our digivices give off"  
"They can do that?" Cody asked.  
"Of course, they are in effective control of the entire Digital World." She explained.  
"Well they can't identify us can they?" Mimi asked.  
"Actually they probably can. Apart from the fact that your group visits here more frequently than the others, all DWC members have their digivices modified to emit an identification code. If they are tracking us, they will have picked up my IDC by now." Erin said.  
"And you were planning on letting us know this?" Matt asked hotly.  
"Nobody asked," Erin shot back. "Look did we come here to kick them out of the Digital World, or did we did we come here to argue about weather they know who we are or not? Lets keep moving." She said as she walked off ahead of the group. Matt looked like he was about to reply, but Tai put a restraining hand on his shoulder.  
"Drop it Matt, she's right." He said as he walked off as well. The rest of the group also moved off in pursuit of Erin, although at a significantly quicker pace. After more walking, they finally reached the cave. Everyone rushed inside to escape the wind, but Davis was more hesitant.  
"I'll, err, keep a lookout here while you go and get whatever it is you need to get." He told the group timidly.  
"Davis this cave is fine, we won't get stuck in here." Kari said reassuringly.  
"She's right. They wouldn't have picked a cave if it wasn't stable." Erin explained. Davis looked at the pair, and then at the rest of the group who had congregated at the mouth of the cave.  
"Davis, the first step to beating a fear like this is facing it." Erin said. Davis locked eyes with her. He could see that she was sincere about what she was saying, but he was still hesitant about entering the cave. After a few minutes he said.  
"Okay, but if we get stuck in this cave I'm holding you personally responsible." Erin smiled at the remark then took Davis' hand and led him into the cave.

After about five minutes of walking, the group came to several large chests stacked against one of the cave walls. Erin began examining the crates, after a short while she turned to the group.  
"Can anyone pick locks?" She asked.  
"Can't you?" Davis asked in return.  
"No, otherwise I wouldn't be asking." Erin answered, a little annoyed.  
"I thought you were 'Junior Miss Tough Chick of the digital world' and you could do anything." Davis remarked, a grin spreading across his face.  
"Look now isn't the time for jokes. Okay so I can't pick locks, believe it or not, I'm not totally disreputable. Can anyone get these things open?" She asked again.  
"I'll have a go." Tai said stepping towards the crates. The group watched him for several minutes trying to open the top most crate, without success. Once he accepted defeat, he turned to the group.  
"Next." He said walking away from the boxes. Each member of the group attempted to open the crates. Agumon even suggested letting him blast it open, but everyone agreed that would be a bad idea, as it would probably destroy the contents of the crate as well. Finally it was Joe's turn at trying to open the crate. He moved the top box so that it was sitting on the floor of the cave, looked at it for a while, then reached in his pocket for something. Once he had retrieved what he was looking for he started work on the lock. After about twenty seconds he had the lock undone and the lid of the crate open.  
"I didn't know you could do that." Mimi said impressed.  
"My brother taught me years ago." Joe explained. No one else questioned him about his hidden skill, as they were more interested in the contents of the box.

Erin stepped forward to examine the contents of the crate. It was indeed a weapons locker. It held several large rifles and several smaller pistol sized weapons, which were in holsters. She picked out one of the smaller weapons and strapped the holster to her thigh. She then picked out one of the bigger guns and threw it to Tai; he caught it and began examining it quizzically. She distributed the remaining weapons to the rest of the group.  
"I'm really not comfortable with this," T.K remarked, "We've never had to use weapons before, why should this be any different? It's not us." He said.  
"The reason this is different is because you have never had to face upwards of a thousand enemies at once. Not even the strongest Digimon could win against those odds. The longer those viruses are present in the Digital World, the more damage they are doing." Erin explained. A lot of the group looked like they had the same feelings as T.K, and as such they accepted their weapons reluctantly. Tai however was still examining his with a confused look on his face.  
"I hate to bring this up, but we've not had training on how to use these things." He said.  
"It's easy," Erin remarked, removing her gun from the holster on her leg. "You simply aim and shoot. Point and click." She said. She demonstrated by firing at a small rock lying on the ground of the cave. The small rock vanished in a shower of what could only be described as data bits. "Simple as that." Erin added after the demo. The rest of the group looked shocked at the display. Erin just re-holstered her gun and continued to look through the crate for anything else that might be useful.  
"What do we do about the rest of the boxes?" Yolei asked.  
"We can just shoot them like the rock." Davis suggested. Without a word Erin turned from her position and fired at one of the other crates. Nothing happened.  
"Why didn't it blow up?" Davis asked, confused.  
"These guns fire a directed electromagnetic pulse designed to destroy anything with an electric circuit or anything that's digital in nature. These crates are from our world therefore they can't be destroyed by the guns." She explained. "That's why you must be very careful when firing them. Only aim at anything that isn't friendly otherwise you will end up loosing it." She cautioned.  
"What about us?" Sora asked.  
"I don't know what effect the guns will have on humans in the Digital World, and I really don't want to find out." Erin said.

In the DWC control room, Johns, Worth and Jackson were huddled around a computer screen displaying a map of an area of the Digital World. On this map was a small red dot.  
"They definitely went to the equipment store." Jackson reported.  
"We also registered two weapons discharges." Worth told Johns.  
"They clearly expect to be attacked in great numbers. I know how much 4-5-2 hated using those things, and she was only testing them." Johns said. "Well let's not disappoint them. The second you know what they are going to do send the sentinels after them." Johns ordered.  
"Mr. Johns, about the sentinels. Last night we were running a check on the systems and we found an extraneous section of code in the master program." Jackson said.  
"What sort of code?" Johns asked.  
"We're not sure, it doesn't appear to do anything. The only thing we do know is it wasn't there the last time we checked the systems." Jackson answered.  
"Very well. Continue as planned. Let me know if you find anything out." Johns ordered.

The digi-destined had now moved out of the cave and were on their way to area they would begin their attack from. There was still no sign of any sentinels, which worried the group.  
"Why haven't we been attacked yet?" Cody asked.  
"They're waiting to find out what we're going to do then send everything at us at once." Erin said.  
"That's comforting." Davis said sarcastically. The level of alertness within the group had never been so high. Everyone was looking in one direction as if waiting for something to attack them from there.  
"Hey, you know with that coat on, nobody would know you have a gun strapped to you leg." Davis said to Erin.  
"That's another reason I like my coat." She replied winking at Davis.  
"I have got to get me one of those." Davis said grinning at Erin. After walking for about half an hour, the group came to a small clearing in the woods they were walking through, with only three trees close together in the centre of the clearing.  
"Is this the place?" Tai asked. Izzy checked his D-Terminal.  
"This is the place." He said.  
"Great. We need to set up." Erin said, "Is there any way to get these trees down?" She asked indicating the three trees in the middle of the clearing.  
"Leave that to us." Yolei said, "Ready Hawkmon?" She asked.  
"As always." He replied.  
"Digi-Armour Energise." Yolei called.  
"Hawkmon armour-digivolve to... Shurimon, the samurai of sincerity"  
"That was cool." Erin remarked.  
"Could everyone stand back please?" Shurimon asked. Everyone complied and stood behind the Digimon. "Double stars." Shurimon called, as the two ninja like stars on his hands shot forwards and sliced through the trees like a hot knife through butter. The tops of the trees fell backwards safely away from the group.  
"Good work." Erin said, a little astonished. She then moved towards the three stumps and removed three laptop computers from the bag she had been carrying. She put one on each stump and wired them together.  
"I was going to ask what was in that bag." Davis remarked as he watched her set up. Izzy and Yolei joined her at the tree stumps, and Erin directed them to which laptop they would be working on.  
"Okay the rest of you, set up a perimeter around us." Erin directed. The rest of the group formed a circle around the three people at the computers.

"Guys, do you think we should digivolve now?" Agumon asked.  
"Yeah that's a good idea, only champion at the moment though. We should save some energy for when it gets really tough." Tai said.  
"What about me?" Gatomon asked.  
"You can go to ultimate." Kari suggested.  
"Good. I hope I can remember how to do it." Gatomon commented.  
"Sure you can, it's just like riding a bike." T.K said supportively.  
"But I've never ridden a bike." Gatomon said. The group laughed a little at the small Digimon's joke.  
"Okay, now." Tai said. As he did all of the Digimon began digivolving at once. Erin stood in awe as the small creatures she had become familiar with suddenly changed into their larger more dangerous looking forms.  
"That is impressive." She said as she looked around at the, now champion level, Digimon. She quickly recovered from her distraction and began typing at her laptop.  
"Okay, you should have access to the areas you are going to attack any minute now." She told Yolei and Izzy. The rest of the group stood with their Digimon, anxiously waiting for the inevitable attack.  
"Got it." Erin shouted suddenly, "Start now." She said to Izzy and Yolei. They knew exactly what to do and so began typing at their laptops as well.

"Sir, we have three unauthorised accesses of the main computer." Worth shouted across the relatively quiet DWC control room. Several people ran up to the computer he was monitoring.  
"What are they doing?" Asked a woman to the right of the screen. It looks like their trying to circumvent the security measures around the main parts of the computer." Worth explained. Almost at that exact moment Johns arrived at the computer as well.  
"What are they doing?" He asked.  
"They look to be attacking the main computer systems." Worth answered.  
"So that's what she meant when she said she could put her training to 'good' use." Johns said to himself. "Jackson, send in the sentinels." He ordered.  
"Yes sir." Jackson said as he ran to his terminal. After a few minutes he turned to the people surrounding Worth's computer.  
"Mr. Johns you had better look at this." He said. Johns rushed over to Jackson's computer.  
"What is it?" He asked hurriedly.  
"I think I just found out what that code is for." Jackson answered.  
"Well?" Johns said impatiently.  
"It looks like it's removed the sentinels camouflage ability, and made them all assume one form. Something I'm not familiar with." Jackson reported. An image of Keramon was displayed on the screen.  
"It looks like 4-5-2s been busy." Johns said, "Try to take it down." Johns ordered.  
"Yes sir." Jackson replied.  
"Send what we've got at them." Johns said.  
"Right away sir." Jackson obeyed.

"Here they come." Tai called.  
"I see them." Matt said from the other side of the circle.  
"Don't let them get too close." Joe said from another area of the circle.  
"You don't need to tell me that." Several of the group shouted at once.  
"How many are there?" Mimi shouted from her place in the circle.  
"I'm not sure, lots." Sora shouted.  
"Let's rock." Davis shouted, which was quickly followed by,  
"Ex-Vee laser." Shouted by Ex-Veemon. Several more attacks followed from each of the Digimon. Meanwhile, Izzy, Yolei and Erin wee busy typing madly at their laptops, looks of sheer determination on their faces.  
"You know those explosions are really quite off-putting." Yolei complained.  
"Stop complaining and keep working." Izzy said.  
"They just keep coming." T.K said, as Angemon dispersed a large group with one "Hand of fate"  
"My bad, I probably should have told you, they're self replicating." Erin said from behind her computer.  
"Fantastic, anything else you have neglected to tell us?" Matt shouted.  
"Not that I can think of, but if I do I'll let you know." Erin shouted back, "Use the guns that's what they're for." Erin suggested. It was clear that most of the group wasn't at all comfortable using the weapons that they had collected. However they did as they were told, they aimed the guns at the oncoming crowd of Keramon.  
"Okay, point and shoot." Davis said to himself, as he steadied his pulse pistol with both hands.  
"Davis, look out." Erin shouted from behind him. But before he could look round to see what she wanted, he saw a pulse blast fly past his head and collide with a sentinel mere meters from where he was standing. The Keramon exploded in a way similar to the rock in the cave.  
"Sorry about the mess." Erin shouted to Davis, as she returned to work.  
"How did I miss that one?" Davis asked himself.  
"Davis we don't have time for that now." Ex-Veemon told him.  
"Right, thanks pal." Davis said as he returned to his aiming. None of the other digi-destined had fired their weapons yet either. A large group of Keramon started moving in T.K's direction. These were quickly dispatched by Angemon, but he said.  
"T.K, you must be prepared to shoot at these things. If a group any larger than that one attacks I won't be able to clear them all." T.K looked at him.  
"You can't be serious, we've never had to rely on weapons before." T.K said.  
"This is different, they aren't real Digimon." Angemon told him in between dispersing a few sentinels. T.K looked up at him again, then readied his own gun at the oncoming horde of viruses. Slowly the remaining members of the group were persuaded to use their weapons as well. Davis, however, was the first to fire. A large group of sentinels were headed in his direction.  
"Davis, you'll have to help with this one. There are far too many for me to take down on my own." Ex-Veemon told him. Davis looked a little worried.  
"Ex-Veemon, get behind me." He told his Digimon. Ex-Veemon complied, and Davis brought his gun up to aim at the fast approaching viruses.  
"Davis, now." Ex-Veemon called.  
"AAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!" Davis screamed as he unleashed a barrage of fire from his pulse pistol. Soon after the other digi-destined got the idea and were all firing along with their Digimon.

"They seem to have gotten the idea." Erin said to Izzy and Yolei, who were still typing madly at their computers.  
"Hey Erin, you said these things self replicate." Matt called between dispersing Keramon with his pulse rifle.  
"Yeah, why?" Erin called back.  
"Well does that mean they appear out of thin air?" Matt asked.  
"It shouldn't." Erin answered.  
"Well then we have a problem." Matt called back.

To Be Continued... 


	9. Out of the frying pan

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 9 - "Once more unto the breach: Part 2 -  
Out of the frying pan..."

"Mr. Johns," Jackson called across the control room of the DWC. "I have deleted the first line of extra code we found in the sentinel master." He reported when Johns had arrived.  
"What did it do?" Johns Asked.  
"Well, as I thought the whole code segment was written to stop the sentinels from using both their camouflage and chameleon fields. The first line was for the camouflage." Jackson answered.  
"So what does that mean?" Johns asked. Although he was in charge of the R & D department of the DWC, he wasn't very technically minded.  
"Well basically the camouflage field allowed the sentinels to blend into their surroundings, effectively making them invisible." Jackson said.  
"And the other part of the code"  
"The chameleon field, allows the sentinels to take the shape of anything in its near vicinity. The other parts of the code are designed to stop them from doing this and to make them all take this shape." Jackson said indicating the picture of Keramon slowly rotating on a nearby computer screen.  
"How long will it take you to remove these parts of the code?" Johns asked.  
"Well this is where it gets difficult. This code was very well written, I can't just remove it. If I do then the whole sentinel network will stop working because it's connected to other more vital parts of the program," Jackson reported, "Whoever wrote this knew what they were doing." He added.  
"Of course they knew what they were doing. We taught her to do it. Who long to bring it down?" Johns reiterated the question.  
"I really can't say at this time as I don't know what other sub-routines within the program it's linked to," Jackson answered, then reading the look on Johns' face he added, "If I had to guess I would say about three hours"  
"You've got ninety minutes, and if you can't bring it down I want a way to alter this code to work for us." Johns ordered.  
"I'll try my best sir." Jackson said as he turned back to his computer screen.

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific than that." Erin shouted at Matt from her computer.  
"Well I just saw one of these things appear out of nowhere." Matt shouted back. Erin thought for a moment before replying.  
"They must have started on my code, removed the first part," she shouted back, "Don't worry about it just be extra vigilant." Erin shouted to all of the digi-destined. She had to shout even louder than before, as now she not only had the wind to contend with, but gunfire, the Digimon's attack and the occasional explosion as well.  
"Well since they can do this now, does anybody think that we should increase our power as well?" Sora asked the group.  
"Good idea." Tai shouted back, "Everybody, digivolve to ultimate now." He ordered in between firing at Keramon "Davis, and Ken. You should DNA digivolve your Digimon to Paildramon." He added. Everybody complied. Erin was once more astounded by what she saw. She stopped working at her laptop and observed all of the Digimon changing form once again, to even larger forms than before. She then saw Ex-Veemon and Stingmon merge to become Paildramon. This surprised her even more as no one had explained to her about DNA digivolving, although she had heard the group mention it once or twice.  
"That was interesting." She remarked, once all the metamorphoses had finished.  
"Pretty cool, huh." Davis said from his new position along side Ken. Erin smiled in agreement, and then went back to work.

The digi-destined continued to fight along with their, now ultimate level, Digimon for what seemed like ever. They had actually been fighting for half an hour since the Digimon became ultimate. They fought in silence as they didn't have time to say anything between shooting at the viruses that relentlessly came at them. The only conversation came, sporadically, from Erin, Yolei and Izzy and this was mostly Yolei's complaints about the noise of the gunfire and the amount of security around a relatively low-profile area of a computer system. She had, though, been quiet for almost ten minutes.  
"Yolei, everything okay?" Erin asked.  
"Yeah," Yolei answered, "I finally got through the security on this database. I should be finished in about fifteen minutes." She said,  
"How 'bout you Izzy?" Erin asked.  
"I'm doing okay. I've crashed their gate so they can't send anybody through at the moment." He answered.  
"How's it going, trying to close it for good?" Erin asked, still typing at her computer "Well I really need Yolei's help for that," Izzy answered, "So I've been doing a bit of sight seeing"  
"You've not been doing anything stupid?" She asked Izzy, alarmed.  
"Well that depends on your meaning of stupid." Izzy answered.  
"Please tell me you haven't been round the whole MI6 network. I only have clearance for the DWC network. Most of MI6 don't even know about us." Erin said even more alarmed.  
"No I've only been round the DWC computers. Personnel reports that sort of thing. You know they were really close to implementing the last part of their plan." He said. Erin breathed a sigh of relief at hearing Izzy's answer "Izzy, you don't have time for sight seeing." Yolei said.  
"Yolei's right. As interesting as it might be reading Johns' memos to his boss, you really need to concentrate on getting that gate down." Erin told him.  
"I was about to start, I've copied everything of interest." Izzy said.  
"Good idea, we can use that as blackmail material in case they come after us." Erin said.

Johns walked over to Worth's computer area.  
"Report." He ordered.  
"They are keeping up quite well with the replication rate of the sentinels. I guess that this would qualify as a felid test of the pulse guns." Worth remarked.  
"Indeed." Johns said. "Have you registered any computer system anomalies? Apart from what we know already." He asked in an offhand manner.  
"Well no others. But I have been keeping up with what's been going on so far." Worth answered. "The gate room reports some very strange readings coming from the port. The security measures on the main database have been circumvented and the safeties on the sentinel's master program are being attacked as we speak." Worth reported.  
"I've got Jackson working on the sentinels. What sort of readings are coming from the port?" Johns asked.  
"I don't know exactly, Clarice Rankin is in charge down there, she knows more than I do." Worth answered.  
"Get her up here, and reinforce the security around the database." Johns ordered.

"I've got it." Yolei shouted, "The first file is gone." She added.  
"Good, start deleting the others. Go for the largest ones first." Erin told Yolei.  
"How are you getting on with getting through the security on your area?" Izzy asked Erin.  
"Not well, every time I get one wall down, another two spring up." She said, frustrated.  
"Perhaps more manpower." Izzy suggested, "I can't do anything now until Yolei finishes with the database"  
"You should keep an eye on the Digi-port." Erin said.  
"Not a problem, I set it so that if they get it back up it will dial out to a random port then start fluctuating the power levels, that should have them confused for a while." He told Erin.  
"If you're sure that'll hold until Yolei's finished then any help would be a godsend about now." Erin said, relieved that she had some help, for a while at least. "I'll switch you over." She said. She typed something on her laptop that made Izzy's display change from the Digi-port's diagnostic program, to a screen with computer code on it.  
"What do I do?" Izzy asked.  
"The master program is protected by adaptive sentinels, but unlike their counterparts here they don't just explode when you attack them. The laptop should have a selection of virus source code on it. Use those viruses to attack the sentinels." Erin told him. Izzy went to work without any further instruction.

The group worked for several minutes in silence until the increasingly erratic gunfire of the rest of the digi-destined distracted them.  
"What is going on over there?" Yolei asked.  
"It's these things, they're coming out of nowhere." Davis remarked, keeping his eyes firmly on the gap in between the trees.  
"It's as if they're coming out of the trees." Tai said, firing a volley from his pulse rifle.  
"And if that wasn't enough, they're replicating incredibly fast now. We can barely keep up with them." Matt said urgently.  
"Can our Digimon fight without us?" Erin asked her companions at the computers.  
"I believe so, if they think we're being threatened in some way." Izzy answered.  
"Well we are." Yolei said.  
"How about it guys, up for some action?" Izzy asked the three Digimon standing by their partners.  
"Always." Hawkmon answered.  
"Anything for you." Tentomon replied.  
"I'm not sure, I'm new to all this." Terriormon said.  
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Izzy said encouragingly. "Ready?" He asked the two people standing with him.  
"Yes." Yolei answered hastily, retrieving her digivice from her pocket.  
"Erin?" Izzy asked turning to Erin.  
"Exactly what do I have to do?" She asked tearing her concentration from her computer.  
"Concentrate on your digivice, it should transfer your energy to Terriormon allowing him to digivolve. And if I remember what Gennai told us correctly, your digivice should allow Terriormon to digivolve straight to ultimate." Izzy told her. Erin look very lost at everything she had just been told and wore a blank expression.  
"I'll try." She said uncertainly. Izzy and Yolei had no trouble in getting their digivolve, Erin on the other hand, just stood there holding her D-3 with a look of intense concentration on her face but with nothing happening. She finally gave up after several moments.  
"Sorry little guy." She said, looking down at Terriormon "Never mind, you've got a lot on your mind at the moment. Maybe later." Terriormon said as encouragingly as he could, but it was hard not to notice the disappointment in his voice.  
"Hey guys, were sending over some help." Izzy called over to the rest of the group who were still trying to keep up with the sentinels.  
"Thanks, that's a great help." Tai shouted back. The three then returned to work. Erin looks down at Terriormon apologetically, and he returned her look with one of understanding, before taking a defensive posture by her side, ready to defend her in his current State if the need arose.

"Somebody call for me?" Clarice Rankin said as she swept into the control room of the DWC.  
"Yes, I did." Johns said, coming forward to meet her. "Daniel Johns." He said extending her hand, "you must be 5-2-9"  
"I prefer Clarice Rankin." Said taking his hand and shaking it slightly. "How can I help?" She asked.  
"I understand you have been getting some abnormal readings from the gate." Johns said.  
"Yes, it appears that our intruders are trying to overload the gates dialling program." Clarice said.  
"Can you stop it?" johns asked.  
"What do you think we've been trying to do down there?" Clarice asked back with a slightly raised voice. "In fact why are you asking me this"  
"We believe the leader of this little insurrection to be 4-5-2, I was her handler." Johns answered.  
"4-5-2, Carter, Erin. What was she doing with a handler, she was R and D. I thought only the field agents got them." Clarice asked.  
"She was special." Johns answered, avoiding answering the question properly.  
"Is that all, only we're quite busy down stares?" Clarice asked disdainfully.  
"Yes, report to me the second you have control of the gate again." Johns ordered, equally as disdainfully.  
"Anything you ask." Clarice said as she walked from the room.

"Mr. Johns I have something." Jackson called across the room. Johns walked from where he was standing after watching Clarice Rankin walk from the room.  
"What is it?" He asked.  
"The code. I can't remove it completely, but I can alter it." Jackson reported.  
"In what way?" Johns asked.  
"This part of the code," Jackson said indicating a section of the code. "That part tell the sentinels what form to take, I think I can change it slightly so that they take on a different form"  
"Did you have anything in mind"  
"Do we have any image files of the attackers?" Jackson asked. Johns leaned forward and typed a few commands on a nearby computer. The image on the screen changed to a live video feed coming form the sentinels. It showed Davis, Ken and Sora all fighting from the sentinel's point of view. The picture, however, kept changing perspective as the sentinels were destroyed by the digi-destined and the Digimon.  
"If we can get a picture for long enough we may be able to extrapolate a clear enough image file for each of them." Johns answered.  
"Good, I'll need somebody to work on that while I refine the amendments to the code. I have a plan," Jackson said, "And fifteen minutes early." He added looking at his watch. Johns smiled, which was a very rare occurrence.  
"Good work let me know when it's ready. I think I know where you're going with this. I'll get somebody to assist you." He said as he left the workstation.

"The port's just crashed." Izzy exclaimed. He had one again started working on the gate.  
"What did you do?" Erin asked.  
"Nothing. It just went down." Izzy said.  
"Show me." Erin replied moving over to his computer. Erin examined the readouts coming off Izzy's laptop screen.  
"You say you didn't do anything?" Erin asked again.  
"No, I was about to run some testes on it and it went down." Izzy answered. Erin and Izzy studied the computer for several minutes before Erin spoke again.  
"Think nothing of it. If it's destabilised then that can only be a good thing." She said returning to her computer. As Izzy was about to continue working, however, something else happened to the gate.  
"The gate just activated itself." Izzy shouted, panicked by what had just happened. Erin, alarmed by what Izzy had said, drew her pulse pistol, moved round Izzy's computer once again and aimed it at the screen. She waited. Nothing came through the port. After a short while the gate deactivated itself and resumed it's idle state.  
"What was all that about?" Erin asked, still aiming her gun at the computer. Izzy moved forward to check the computer.  
"It looks as though nothing came through," Izzy said as he checked all of the systems. "No wait, something did come through. Someone sent us a message from the DWC." He said.  
"Let me see." Erin said approaching the computer once again. Izzy had opened the message and Erin read it to herself. "It's from 5-2-9, she's one of ours." Erin said smiling at the fortunate turn of events.  
"What does the message say?" Izzy asked.  
"It's only short. It says that she knows what we're trying to do to the gate and she will help anyway she can. It also says that she has had a run in with Johns." Erin reported. Izzy also read the message.  
"What does she mean by she thought that only field agents got handlers?" Izzy asked.  
"That's not important at the moment, what is important though is that we have help inside now." Erin said returning to her workstation once more. Yolei, who had heard the conversation, now spoke.  
"No, I think it's quite important. What did she mean?" She asked.  
"Exactly what she said, only felid agents need handlers to give them their assignments." Erin answered reluctantly.  
"So then why did you have one?" Yolei asked, "You told us you were never a field agent." She added with increased anger. Erin paused before answering.  
"I suggest you keep working while I explain this." She said looking down at her laptop. "The plan was for all of the digi-destined members of the DWC to become agents eventually, as we're the only ones who can go to the Digital World. My application for transfer was awaiting Johns' approval before I discovered their master plan. Then I got transferred out here; this was to be my first assignment so to speak, hence Johns." She explained as she typed.  
"So you lied to us again." Yolei shouted.  
"Not exactly, I never worked in the Digital World. Listen, you can hate me all you want after we've finished here. For now concentrate." Erin shouted back.

"Guys, when you've finished arguing, I think we might be winning against these things." Davis shouted over the noise of Paildramon mowing down a group of Keramon with his,  
"Desperado blaster"  
"What makes you say that?" Izzy asked.  
"It looks as though they're retreating." Matt answered.  
"Impossible," Erin remarked. "The only think that would make them do that as if they were programmed to do so." She said.  
"They must have been reprogrammed then, 'cause the numbers attacking have halved." Ken shouted across to the small group at the computers.  
"And the numbers are decreasing all the time." Tai added.  
"Keep fighting them. I'm almost through the security on the system, once I'm in I'll have a look, see what's been changed." Erin said.  
"I've done it." Came a shout from Yolei's direction, mere seconds later. "The database is down." She shouted happily.  
"Good work, now help Izzy and Clarice with the gate." Erin said, transferring Yolei's computer to the gate systems.  
"Clarice?" Yolei asked.  
"5-2-9, our girl on the inside." Erin answered.  
"What are we doing?" Yolei asked Izzy, when she had control of her computer.  
"We've just come up with a plan." Izzy answered. "Clarice is going to open the gate while I overload the dialling program. We need you to feed the open gate junk before it closes. We think that might overload the program and crash it permanently." He explained.  
"What sort of junk?" Yolei asked.  
"Anything, any trash files. Use your imagination. Try firing some viruses at it as well, that might help." Izzy answered.

"We've lost the database." Worth said to Johns, who was standing at his side.  
"That's too bad, did we have any backups?" Johns asked.  
"Of course we did, they got them as well." Worth answered.  
"Great. How long will it take us to rebuild?" Johns asked.  
"We may not be able to. According to the gate room, the attack on the port has increased. If they keep up what they're doing much longer we will loose all gate functions as well"  
"Well we need to stop them before that happens." Johns said. He walked over to Jackson's station.  
"How are things going?" He asked.  
"We're ready to implement the plan." Jackson answered.  
"Good, do so immediately. We need to distract them long enough to regain control of the port." Johns said.  
"Right away." Jackson said. He typed a few commands on his terminal and the screens that displayed the Digital World showed receding images of the digi-destined.

"They've all gone." Tai shouted. The area that surrounded the digi-destined was once again silent except for the wind. Erin looked up from her computer.  
"Keep working, this has to be a trap. The sentinels don't do that, I know I programmed them." She said to Yolei and Izzy. "How close are you to taking the port down?" She asked them.  
"We need to refine what we're doing, we should be done in about twenty minutes." Izzy said.  
"Keep at it." Erin said as she walked towards Davis, gun drawn again. She inspected the area of woods in front of where he and Ken stood before turning to face the rest of the digi-destined. "Search the area." She told them, "Be very careful though, this has to be a trap." She said as she returned to her computer. She didn't re-holster her pulse pistol; she laid it by the side of her computer before returning to work. The rest of the digi-destined moved out into the surrounding woods. The Digimon remained in the clearing in case the sentinels returned while their partners were searching. The three remaining digi-destined worked in silence while their friends were away. The group worked for roughly ten minutes before the first of their comrades returned.  
"There's nothing out there except trees." Matt said as he walked up to the three working at the computers.  
"You didn't find a thing?" Erin asked.  
"Nothing, not even a wild Digimon." Matt answered. "I'm not surprised with the noise you've been making." Yolei joked.  
"How you doing?" He asked.  
"We've nearly got their gate down." Izzy answered. "That's good, what about getting through the security protocols on the sentinels master program?" He asked Erin. She eyed him suspiciously before answering.  
"I'm nearly through. I should be finished with the security by the time they get the gate down." She said. Matt walked back to his previous position near Weregraurumon. The rest of the digi-destined returned shortly afterwards all reporting the same thing; they had seen nothing out of the ordinary in the surrounding woods. In fact they had seen nothing but trees and the odd twig on the ground.  
"We've got something," Izzy shouted, "The stability of the gate has dropped to twenty percent." He said.  
"How long, until it's down to zero?" Erin asked.  
"If this works, about five minutes." Yolei answered.  
"Keep at it." Erin said. Several minutes passed without further sign of any sentinels.  
"How you getting on with the gate?" Erin asked the pair behind her.  
"Nearly there." Izzy said.

"Hey guys, there's nothing out there except trees." The whole group all looked in the same direction to see Tai emerging from the woods. Everyone trained their guns on him as he walked forward.  
"Hey, what's with the reception?" He asked.  
"Stay where you are!" Erin shouted from her place behind her computer.  
"What is with the guns?" Tai asked again.  
"Who are you?" Matt shouted at him. Tai looked at himself before answering.  
"I think I'm Tai. I was the last time I checked." He answered sarcastically.  
"Then who's that?" Matt asked pointing to the person standing next to him. Matt was standing next to Tai.  
"That's a cool trick." The Tai being held at gunpoint said as somebody else emerged from behind him.  
"The place is clean, whoa!" T.K said as he saw the group all pointing guns at Tai and now him. "What's going on?" He asked.  
"That's what we're trying to find out," Erin said, she then turned to Yolei and Izzy. "Don't stop working." She told them. They complied; the pair put down their pulse pistols and returned their attention to the computers. Davis was the next to come out of the woods. He had the same reaction as Tai and T.K when everybody aimed their guns at him. One by one the remaining digi-destined also came out from the forest to be met with the same reception, until there were two groups of digi-destined minus Erin, Yolei and Izzy.  
"Why is nothing ever easy?" The second Tai whispered into his Sora's ear. The groups stood in silence, staring at each other.  
"Done it," Izzy shouted, "Their gate's finished." This proved to enough of a distraction for the second group of digi-destined to bring their weapons to bear. Everybody was now aiming a gun at their counterpart; except Erin, who was aiming in the general direction of the group.

"Sir, we've lost the gate." Worth reported.  
"Damn!" Johns shouted as he hit the table next to him with his fist. "Is there any way to bring it back?" He asked angrily.  
"No, the gate room reports total failure. This command is finished." Worth answered.  
"Well then the least we can do is repay the favour." He said icily. "Jackson," he called across the control room, "Order the remaining sentinels to begin extraction." He turned back to Worth. "Our friends have about thirty minutes before the Digital World destroys itself."

The large group of twenty people were now all shouting at each other and changing their positions randomly, all still pointing guns in every direction.  
"Stop it, all of you!" Erin shouted at the top of her voice. This had little effect on the violently arguing group, so Erin fired her pulse pistol at the nearest tree to the group, causing it to explode. This got the groups attention.  
"Thank you, now that I have you attention," Erin shouted at the group, "This is getting us nowhere slowley." She said, but before she could continue the ground beneath them shook violently causing everybody to loose their footing.  
"What the hell was that?" Tai shouted.  
"They must have started the extraction process. We've got about half an hour before the world pulls itself apart." Erin said as the ground shook again. The Digimon had de-digivolved, since the stand off had begun, and we're now standing collectively by the three digi-destined at the computers.  
"This is where it get interesting." One of the Matt's wisecracked. "Okay we don't have a lot of time so we can do this one of three ways." Erin said to the group. "The sentinels among you can come forward now and be shot." She said.  
"Tempting prospect." One of the Tai's said sarcastically.  
"Or we can let the Digimon here find you out and you can get shot, they have a very good ability at sniffing out other digital entities." She said.  
"And behind door number three?" One of the Davis' asked.  
"Yolei can I borrow your pulse pistol please?" Erin asked. Yolei handed over her gun and Erin carried it over to the tree stump where she was working. She mover her laptop out of the way and smashed the gun on the stump causing all of its innards to spill out. Erin fished through the debris that remained of the pulse pistol until she produced a long rod.  
"Or we can check each one of you with this," she said showing the rod she removed from the gun, "The magnetic constrictor coil of the pulse pistol's pre-fire chamber. As you know digital things don't much care for magnets, so you can endure the most likely painful effects of the magnet then get shot." She told the group. The ground shook again this time more violently than before. The group remained silent. "I'll choose then." She said as she approached the nearest person to her. "I'm not to keen on getting the Digimon involved, so we'll do it this way." She said as she jabbed the magnet constrictor coil in one of the Joe's necks. Nothing happened. "Interesting," she said, "But just to be on the safe side." She added as she approached the other Joe. She did the same to him, only this time something did happen. This Joe did have a reaction, his appearance became like that of static on a television. Every member turned their gun on him and fired simultaneously, and he disappeared in much the same way as the rest of the sentinels. Erin turned back to the first Joe,  
"Can I leave you in charge of this?" She asked.  
"Sure." He said. She threw him the coil and returned to her computer.

"Okay we have about twenty-five minutes, are you ready?" She asked Izzy and Yolei. They answered affirmatively and began typing. The group remained silent apart from the random gunfire. After five minutes Erin exclaimed,  
"I'm in"  
"Great, now what do we do?" Izzy asked.  
"It looks like we're going to have to delete each of the sub-routines individually and then the remaining program code." She answered, "Yolei you go for the ones at the top, Izzy go from line seventy five and I'll start at one forty-five." Erin said. The group complied and began typing. The ground shook again; it was becoming more frequent now as well as more violent. The other group of digi-destined was down to twelve people, there were two Tai's and two Cody's left and the group had the guns trained on them.  
"One down." Yolei shouted as she successfully removed one of the sub-routines. The other group fired on one of the Cody's who exploded like the Keramon; there were only two Tai's left.  
"Got one." Izzy shouted as he removed his first sub-routine. Joe was now standing in front of the two Tai's.  
"Do either one of you want to volunteer?" He asked. They remained silent. "Okay then." Joe said and stabbed one of the Tai's at random. It was the real Tai. The entire group, Tai included, turned on the other Tai. He started to back away, but before he could get very far the group had opened fire and had destroyed it.  
"That was weird. I just killed myself." Tai said slightly dazed. The group then went to stand near the remaining three digi-destined. T.K, who had been keeping an eye on the time since his double was destroyed, looked again at his watch.  
"We've got about ten minutes before the lights go out." He hissed at the group, not wanting to break the concentration of the three working at the computers.  
"Three more to go, then the rest of the code." Erin announced.

As the group was distracted by the goings on at the computers they didn't notice a lone Keramon enter clearing. It stealthy moved around the group, avoiding being noticed. Once it had found what it was looking for it pounced. It jumped straight for Erin. Davis was the first to notice the movement.  
"Erin, look out." He shouted as the sentinel flew past him, but before anyone had a chance to bring their weapon up to the creature Terriormon jumped up blocking its path. Just at that time Erin's D-3 started glowing brightly.  
"Wow, this is a strange feeling." Terriormon just about had time to say before he started digivolving. "Terriormon digivolve to... Gargomon." He exclaimed. Gargomon landed just in front of the Keramon. The sentinel started to attack but before it got very far Gargomon shouted, "Bunny pummel," and attacked it with a barrage of fire from the gun mounted on his arm. Erin looked up from her computer to see Davis standing next to Gargomon.  
"Thank you, both of you." She said.  
"That's what I'm here for, and hey I finally digivolved." Gargomon said.  
"Yeah, don't mention it." Davis added. He locked eyes with her for a second before asking, "Hey Carter, when this is all over with, do you maybe want to go out on a date with me sometime?" Erin smiled broadly.  
"Fantastic timing Davis, but if you don't finish soon this won't be over with. We've got about three minutes." T.K said. Erin caught Davis eye and nodded before returning to her computer.  
"Okay we've got two more sub-routines and the remaining code to delete." She said.  
"One more." Izzy said straight away afterwards.

An extremely tense atmosphere rested over the group as the three digi-destined typed away madly at their laptops. The rest of the group were once again looking out for stray Keramon in case a repeat of what just happened occurred.  
"That's the last of the sub-routines." Yolei shouted.  
"Ninety seconds." T.K shouted from where he was standing. The ground was almost constantly shaking now and everyone was finding it quite hard to remain standing.  
"Forty five seconds." T.K shouted.  
"Three lines to go." Erin shouted back.  
"Two." Izzy shouted a moment later.  
"One." Yolei shouted.  
"That's it." Erin shouted as the shaking stopped. The rest of the group were all holding on to trees to stop themselves from falling over, now straightened up.  
"That's it?" Tai questioned.  
"Yes." Erin answered. The group stood in stunned silence until Yolei began cheering. Soon after the entire group were cheering also.

Several hours later the party was still going on in Tai and Kari's apartment. All of the Digimon had joined their partners into the human world, and were joining in the celebrations.  
"This is one of the good days, people." Tai said, raising his glass. He turned to Erin, "To Erin," he toasted, "without her we would have ended up loosing the Digital World." He added. Everybody else followed suit, raising their glasses and reciting Erin's name. All except Davis, who said 'Carter', instead. After the toast, and when Erin had finished blushing, Matt made his way over to her.  
"Hey Erin, can I have a word?" He asked quietly.  
"Sure." Erin answered, and they made their way onto the balcony.  
"Erin, I just want to apologise for the way I've acted towards you lately." He said, "I know I've been quite unkind to you since we found out about your employment. But now you've proven your intentions are good and that you're a friend who's not to be distrusted again." He finished.  
"Honestly it's fine. In fact I expected more of you to act in the same way. But thanks." Erin replied. The pair stood in silence for a moment, looking out at the skyline of Odaiba, until they were interrupted by Yolei joining them on the balcony.  
"Hey guys, what you up to?" She asked.  
"Nothing much." Matt answered, and then sensing what was about to happen, excused himself. "I'm going to get another drink." He said heading back into the apartment. Silence returned to the balcony.  
"Erin, I'm sorry." Yolei finally said.  
"What for?" Erin asked.  
"For the way I've been around you." Yolei answered.  
"Yolei, it's fine, really. Like I just said to Matt, I'm surprised more of you didn't react in the same way." Erin reiterated.  
"It's going to be harder to doubt you in the future." Yolei joked.  
"I apologise for my strengths." Erin joked back, "Come on, my glass is empty. Let's go and get a drink." And with that the pair rejoined the other in the living room of the apartment. 


	10. Out the door, just in time

"See The Sky Again" - By Jehuty42

Chapter 10 – "Out the door, just in time..."

Two Weeks Later…

Davis was rushing about his apartment getting himself ready for meeting the other digi-destined in the Digital World. The group hadn't been together as a whole since the battle two weeks previously. This was because they had decided to take it in shifts to repair the damage done to the Digital World, and so didn't have time to get together as a group. Today was going to be the first meeting since. They were going to meet in the Digital World for a picnic and a re-introduction meeting as Davis suggested. He was currently rushing around his bedroom trying to find some clean clothes; he had over slept once again and was now in a hurry to get ready. He was supposed to meet at Erin's place and travel to the Digital World from there, although he now only had ten minutes to get there. Once he had got dressed, he grabbed his D-3 and D-Terminal from the table near his bed, picked up Demiveemon and rushed to the front door where he picked up he keys and hurried out. Once outside he looked at his watch, five minutes to spare.  
'Out the door, just in time' he thought to himself as he started running towards Erin's apartment.

Elsewhere, Kari and T.K were doing the same thing. They too had overslept and were now in a hurry to get to Sora's apartment where they were going to meet Sora and Tai. They hurried along a crowded street trying their hardest not to run into too many people, and apologising quickly to the ones they ran into. They turned into a less crowded street.  
"You okay in there?" T.K asked his bag. From inside they heard a muffled yelp. T.K quickly pulled his bag round and looked inside it. From inside they saw Patamon massaging his head "I hate travelling like this." Patamon exclaimed.  
"Don't worry, we're nearly there." T.K told his Digimon friend.  
"Come on, or we're going to be late." Kari said to T.K.  
"Sorry buddy, got to go." T.K said closing his bag once more. T.K then started running to catch up with Kari.

"Hey babe. How you doing?" Davis said breathlessly in Erin's doorway.  
"Where have you been?" Erin asked. Davis stood, panting, on her doorstep. She invited him in.  
"It's busy out there." Davis said between breaths.  
"You overslept again." Erin remarked.  
"Would you expect anything less?" Davis asked, regaining his composure. Erin grinned.  
"I wouldn't have it any other way." She said before leaning forward and kissing him. They remained like this for some time, and were only disturbed by the sound of Demiveemon falling out of Davis' bag, which he had discarded by the door.  
"Sorry pal, I forgot about you." Davis apologised quickly. Demiveemon dusted himself off, and then noticed Terriormon walking towards the small group.  
"Were they doing it again?" Terriormon asked.  
"Yep, I don't get it myself." Demiveemon answered.  
"Must be a human thing." Terriormon remarked, and the pair of Digimon walked off in search of food.  
"Do you think we should tell them?" Davis asked Erin.  
"Maybe later, are you ready to go?" Erin asked in return.  
"Sure, I think we should get the Digimon something to eat first though. We had to miss breakfast." Davis said. Erin laughed at his comment then led them into the kitchen.

"What happened to you two?" Tai asked, accusingly. T.K and Kari had just arrived at Sora's apartment.  
"We, err, got held up." T.K said, going slightly red. Tai noticed this.  
"How?" He asked even more accusingly.  
"We kind of, err, overslept. Are we ready to go yet?" Kari asked trying to change the subject.  
"Yeah, Matt and the other are already in the Digital World waiting for us and Erin and Davis." Sora answered.  
"Well what are we waiting for?" Kari asked moving in the direction of Sora's room, Sora followed. T.K tried to follow, but Tai put a hand on his shoulder preventing him from moving.  
"Overslept, huh." Tai said.  
"Yeah." T.K replied, unsure of what Tai wanted.  
"You weren't doing anything stupid were you?" Tai asked, once again accusingly. T.K realised at once what Tai wanted.  
"No we weren't. We overslept, in separate apartments. Come on Tai, what do you take me for?" T.K asked.  
"A guy." Tai answered bluntly, "A teenage guy. Remember I was your age once, I know what it's like to have all those hormones running through your body"  
"Come on Tai, you know me better than that." T.K replied. Tai considered this for a moment.  
"Yeah I know, it's just my job to be overprotective." Tai said. T.K grinned.  
"Now that I know. Come on they're waiting for us." He said. The pair moved off towards Sora's bedroom to join the girls.

The four people and their Digimon partners emerged at the foot of a small television near a large stretch of beach.  
"Well the ports are working again." Sora remarked as she stood up. The group noticed the other digi-destined, minus Davis and Erin, waving at them from a little way down the beach "No Davis?" Mimi shouted at them at them as they neared the others.  
"We thought they were with you." T.K shouted back.  
"When have you even known Davis to be on time for anything?" Matt asked. The four new arrivals sat them selves with their friends on a large picnic blanket. There was a large picnic basket in the centre and a drink cooler next to it.  
"This place is back to normal." Kari observed.  
"Actually this was one of the only places not to get damaged." Joe informed them.  
"Really? Well we've hardly been out of primary village for the last week, so we've not had a chance to explore." Kari said indicating T.K.  
"Yeah, that place was a real mess. Luckily we didn't loose anybody." T.K said.  
"What a stroke of luck." Cody said adding to the conversation.

It was about that time that Davis and Erin also fell through the port, closely followed by Terriormon and Veemon. Tai glanced at his watch, then at the pair of digi-destined that had just joined then and then back at his watch.  
"On time as usual." He joked.  
"Yeah, sorry about that. We got delayed." Davis told the group.  
"You weren't the only ones." Sora told them, looking in Kari and T.K's direction. They were now very interested in anything other than the current conversation.  
"We don't really need to ask why Davis is late." Matt joked.  
"Hey, what are you implying? I don't always oversleep. I sometimes have very good reasons for being late." Davis defended.  
"Okay so what's your very good excuse today?" Yolei asked.  
"He overslept." Erin interjected.  
"Thanks a lot." Davis grunted in her ear. They sat down with the rest of the group in a space between Mimi and Yolei.

"Okay so now that we're all here, how about you let us know how you all doing in your areas." Tai said to the group.  
"Primary village is almost back to normal. In fact everyone moved back in yesterday." Kari said.  
"The area Joe, Cody and I were working on wasn't hit all that bad, so is also nearly back to normal." Mimi told the group.  
"Me and Tai haven't done all that bad either. Our section was finished yesterday." Sora said smugly.  
"Matt and my area was damaged really quite badly, we're going to need about another week before it's back to normal." Izzy told them.  
"We can help now." Tai suggested.  
"That would be great." Izzy said happily.  
"Davis and I have gone through three of the least affect areas already. Our last one should be finished by Friday." Erin told the group.  
"And Ken and I also finished with our area last night." Yolei said, finishing the progress report.  
"That's really good, well done everyone," Tai said, "the Digital World should be back to it's old self before the end of the week." He added. The group cheered at hearing this.

"You ask them." Terriormon said, nudging Veemon forward a little.  
"No you ask them, it's always me who asks them." Veemon said, returning the nudge.  
"Then they'll be expecting it from you." Terriormon replied, now pushing Veemon. Terriormon and Veemon had moved to a quiet area of the picnic spot and were conversing in hushed tones.  
"They have more chance in saying yes if you ask." Veemon said, pushing his friend a little harder than he intended to, sending him in Erin.  
"What are you two up to?" She asked.  
"Nothing." They both replied a little too quickly.  
"It doesn't look like nothing." She said to them. They now had the whole groups attention.  
"We were just deciding…" Veemon started to say, but before he could finish the sentence a large rumble emitted from vicinity of Terriormon's stomach.  
"Is it lunch time yet, only we missed breakfast?" Terriormon said, after the growling had stopped.  
"If you're making sounds like that, the I guess it had better be." Mimi said with a large grin on her face. Sora moved to open the picnic basket but before she had taken two steps, all thirteen Digimon had surrounded the basket.  
"I guess they all missed breakfast." Erin observed.  
"No, the Digimon like eating as much as Davis likes sleeping." Yolei told her. Erin chuckled at this remark, much to the displeasure of Davis. Once she had made her way through the Digimon, Sora started handing out food from the basket, while Matt started on the cooler. The group sat around for a while devouring the contents of the basket, the Digimon having the larger share.

The mood of the group was a good one, everyone was smiling. The sun was once again shining in the Digital World, this pleased Gatomon no end. The digi-destined talked about a variety of topics while they ate lunch, centring mainly on what they had done since they had seen each other last. This brought about the subject of Davis and Erin's date.  
"So, how are things between you two?" Mimi asked the pair excitedly.  
"Things are fine." Davis answered, not entirely understanding the question. By this time all of the remaining girls in the group had joined Mimi and were all staring at the pair.  
"Oh, you mean those things." Davis said after seeing the girl's reactions to the question. "Things are better than fine, in that case." He answered. The girls turned, as one, to face Erin. She had a large grin on her face.  
"Well we needn't bother asking her if she agrees." Sora noted, reading Erin's expression.  
"Well what happened?" Yolei asked "Yeah come on, what did you do?" Kari added.  
"Well," Erin said looking at Davis, who grinned. "Davis picked me up from my place, on time," she explained after reading the look on Sora's face, "then he took me for a meal at the new restaurant by the beach." She continued.  
"I've seen that place, it's really expensive." Mimi said. "Was it good?" She asked.  
"Better than good." Erin answered.  
"Well, what happened after that?" Sora asked anxiously.  
"Well then we went for a moonlight stroll around the bay ending up in the park"  
"Sounds nice, I didn't know you had it in you Davis." Yolei joked. The group laughed, including the boys who were listening to Erin's description of the night's events. Davis merely looked smug.  
"So was that it, nothing else happened?" Mimi asked trying to get every last big of information from the pair.  
"Oh, yeah," Davis said, "Erin got paged by Johns"  
"You're joking." Sora shouted.  
"Nope." Davis replied.  
"What did you do?" Kari asked.  
"I threw my pager in the water, we were walking by the beach at the time and the tide was in." Erin answered with a big grin on her face. The group laughed once more. The Digimon were all playing together to one side of the beach, so the group continued with their conversations.

"Hey Davis, that's what I meant to ask you." Yolei said, after a while.  
"What was that?" Davis asked.  
"Since when were you claustrophobic? You never showed any sign of it when we were in the Digital World last year, and we got stuck in that oil platform." She asked. Davis shuddered at the though of being stuck in the airtight compartment of the offshore platform.  
"It happened early this year. I was eating and I got two really big lumps of food caught in my throat. I couldn't breathe, I just panicked. It took my mum nearly five minuets to get both pieces free, although I could breathe a little after the first bit came up. You know, I think I still have the bruises on my back where my mum was slapping me so hard." Davis joked as he finished talking.  
"And it's because of that, that you're claustrophobic?" Yolei asked.  
"Yeah, I just kind of freak whenever I'm in situations like the cave now. I don't even like going in elevators." He told them. The group looked shocked.  
"So you nearly died?" Yolei asked quietly.  
"Yeah, but I didn't, that's the main thing"  
"Yes it is." Erin said, gripping on to Davis's arm a little harder than she had intended. "How come you never told us before?" Kari asked.  
"Well, it's not like I was trying to keep it secret, but like you said once, sometimes it's hard to admit you have a weakness." Davis told her.  
The group sat in silence for a moment.  
"Hey, does anyone else have any near death experiences they would like to share?" Davis joked. "Not counting anything in the Digital World." He added. The group remained silent until T.K spoke.  
"Yeah, sort of." The group gasped. They didn't expect anyone else to speak, least of all T.K. He usually kept things like this firmly to himself.  
"What happen?" Kari asked, more shocked than anyone else.  
"While I was at my other school, after I moved away, we were in a science class doing an experiment using the burners you use to boil stuff with. Anyway somebody behind me called me, so I turned around to see what they wanted. While my back was turned my lab partner tripped up and knocked the burner on me." The entire group cringed at hearing this "Worst of all, it wasn't the control flame either, it was on full power." The group winced again. "Well long story short, I got second and third degree burns on my left shoulder and upper arm, and was in hospital for a week getting skin grafts and stuff. Not that it helped much." He said lifting the arm of his t-shirt up over shoulder revealing the scars that would have normally been covered.  
"Whoa that's nasty." Davis exclaimed, T.K laughed at his outburst.  
"You should have seen it fresh." He joked. He then turned to Kari, "That's why I said me and candles don't have a good history." Kari nodded in understanding. The rest of the group were silent. "But hey, you look back on things like that and laugh." T.K said lightening the mood of the group.

A short while later the digi-destined were once again laughing, the food had long since been eaten, and the group were just talking now. The Digimon had also joined the group's conversations. After a short time, the group fell silent for a moment.  
"Hey guys, can I say something?" Erin asked in the silence.  
"Sure, what do you want to say?" Davis asked in return.  
"Well for a start I want to thank you all. Not only accepting me so quickly but forgiving me as well." She said.  
"You don't need to thank us. You're one of us, so that's our duty." Davis said reassuringly.  
"Yeah, but after everything I've put you all through, all the lies and everything. If I were in your positions, I don't think I could have done I so easily." She told them.  
"Newbie, listen." It was Ken who spoke, "A little over a year ago these guys were called into the Digital World because some idiot calling himself the Digimon emperor was trying to take over the world." He told her.  
"I know that, you all told me, what's the point?" Erin asked.  
"That idiot was me. I was under the control of something called a dark spore, which made me a genius but at the same time also made me a maniac intent on taking over the Digital World. The things I did to the world and the Digimon were unforgivable, but these guys did and now I'm here." He finished. Although Erin had been told of the Digimon emperor, nobody had told her whom it was, so the confession came as a large shock to her.  
"Ken, I had no idea." She said quietly, "Well thank you all anyway, it really means a lot to me." She added, just a quietly.

By this time it was getting quite late and the sun was starting to set.  
"Hey, what say we take this back to our world, it's getting late." Tai pointed out.  
"Good idea. Why don't you all come round to my place my parents are going away for the weekend so I have the place to myself. And since the new school year starts soon, this might be the last chance we get to spend with each other." Erin suggested, "I have quite a large apartment so there will be plenty of room for everyone." She added.  
"That's not a bad idea, what do you all say?" Tai asked the group. They all nodded in agreement.  
"Yeah," Sora said, "But can we stay and watch the sunset first, it's been ages since we've seen one in the digital world and it's so nice here?" She asked. The group agreed and all turned towards the horizon. From their place on the beach they had a perfect view of the sunset. The digi-destined, old and new, and their Digimon all sat in silence as they watched the sun sink slowly down behind the horizon of the perfectly still ocean. It was, to say the least, one of the most beautiful sights the digital world had to offer.

The End. 


End file.
